


Never Alone

by Nepetas_Apprentice



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Apocalypse, Bill is a jerk, Gen, Gravity Falls is in danger, Mabel and Dipper are 13, Sharing a Body, Wendy is a badass, but a likable jerk?, forgot to mention: Mabel is also a badass, just in her own way, so they're Real Teenagers now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-17
Updated: 2015-10-02
Packaged: 2018-04-09 20:50:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 117,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4363730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nepetas_Apprentice/pseuds/Nepetas_Apprentice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dipper thinks he's managed to beat Bill at his own game when he discovers a spell that traps one's soul within their body, thereby letting him make a deal with the demon without becoming a puppet a second time around. The plan backfires, though, and the two end up trapped in one body, forced to work together while they search for a way to release Bill.</p><p>At the same time, things are getting abnormally weird in Gravity Falls. Portals are opening up all around town, and dangerous new creatures are appearing seemingly from nowhere. Somehow, Dipper has to save a town on the brink of destruction while dealing with a demon that keeps taking over his legs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Humans Are Just as Dumb as They Look

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place in an AU in which Stan never managed to reopen Ford's portal. Maybe he couldn't figure it out. Maybe he just never tried. Either way, the twins had a fun, _relatively_ uneventful summer, and now they're back in Gravity Falls for the second year in a row.

“Personally, I think mint chocolate chip is better with nuts, but Grenda keeps telling me that it’s a sin to add anything to perfect ice cream, so I said that while her point is valid, _I_ think almonds are guaranteed to improve anything they come into contact with. Then, Candy said that mint chocolate chip is only worth eating if it’s in a waffle cone anyways, and that strawberry is far superior, to which Grenda said that strawberry is only around to make you work for the good sections in an ice cream sandwich.”

Dipper nodded slowly, as if interacting with a possibly dangerous wild animal. “Right. So, you brought me to the ice cream shop because…?”

“To be the judge, of course!” Mabel cried. “As the one truly unbiased person in this debate, you should be the one to decide which ice cream is truly the best!”

“It’s true,” Candy added. “If any of us judged, I believe that that are some who might unfairly choose mint chocolate chip, despite its mediocre flavor.”

“Mint chocolate chip is the greatest!” Grenda roared, making everyone in the shop jump.

Dipper raised his hands in an attempt at a calming gesture. “Guys, I’m flattered that you would ask me to do this, but I’ve got to say. I don’t actually like ice cream that much.”

“What!” all three yelled, staring at Dipper with a mixture of confusion and dismay.

“Yeah, I don’t know, it’s just too, uh, cold? I guess? Not really my thing. I’m more of a snowcone guy, myself.”

“I will not stand here and listen to this blasphemy,” Mabel said. “Dipper, we’re ordering our ice cream, and then we’re leaving!” Grenda and Candy each nodded in turn, narrowing their eyes at him.

“Okay, guys, you do that,” he said, backing away. “I’ll just be outside, doing… something else. Have fun.”

The three turned away from him, and quickly got busy discussing which flavors would go best together in a triple cone. Dipper stole the opportunity and darted out the glass door.

He immediately missed the air conditioned atmosphere of the shop, not that he was desperate enough to go back inside yet. He marched down the sidewalk, wiping away sweat that had formed under his hat. Whoever had said that Oregon weather was nice and mild had probably lived on the sun for most of their life. Sure, it was cloudy some days, but a few clouds were hardly enough to stop it from hitting 100° when that’s what the weather wanted to do.

Today was not quite that bad, but the heat still caused his shirt to stick to his back, and he was almost certain that the pavement was going to start melting down his shoes. When he looked around, he realized that there was almost nobody else walking around outside, which was probably a smart idea, and definitely one that he could get behind, if only he could find somewhere to go.

That was when a van pulled up beside him and honked its horn. The window rolled down, revealing Wendy and her friends. The blast of air conditioning on his eyes almost had Dipper in tears.

“Dude, what are you doing out here?” Wendy asked. She was leaning forward a bit to see past Lee, who was still caught up in the music on the radio and didn’t seem to notice that they had stopped.

“Nothing,” Dipper said. “Wandering around, trying to find something to do.”

“Dude, don’t you know it’s like, a billion degrees too hot to just be wandering?”

“Yeah, yeah, I definitely noticed that,” Dipper said. “You guys going anywhere?”

“Nah, not really, but the van’s air conditioning is way better than any of our houses. Want a ride?”

“Oh, definitely,” Dipper said, opening the rear door and climbing in next to Nate. Tambry and Robbie sat in the back, deep in their own conversation, but they paused to wave when Dipper climbed in. He was grateful that the two had calmed down some since the previous summer. When they had been in their honeymoon phase, they had been locked together nonstop, to the point that even Thompson had told them to knock it off. This, of course, had led to a barrage of insults at Thompson, and the guy had somehow ended up sitting in a bucket of ice water. Dipper couldn’t remember exactly how the day had worked out that way, but it had gotten Robbie and Tambry to calm down a bit afterward.

“So, Dipper, we were having this debate, and you can totally tell us who’s right,” Wendy said as she started the van back up again.

“Seriously, another one?” Dipper said. “Fine, what is it?”

“Okay, so let’s say you’re alone at home when a werewolf breaks in. You’re not super prepared for this kind of thing, but you know that your mom keeps her expensive silver in a box nearby. Do you go for the silver, or do you hide under a bed and hope it doesn’t find you?”

“Wait, is this really even worth debating?” Dipper asked.

“See, Dipper gets it!” Wendy said.

“No way,” Nate said. “Dipper, think about it. Sure, a werewolf might rough you up a bit, but can you even imagine what your mom would do if she found out you got werewolf blood on Grandma’s fancy knives? She would kill you, every day, for the rest of your life, I swear it.”

“I mean, I guess, but…”

“Guess nothing!” Wendy said. “Do you have any idea how much werewolf fur is probably worth? I’d say kill the thing from behind, skin it, use the profits to buy mom a nice china set, and then spend the rest on tons of cool stuff.”

Dipper was going to offer a rebuttal when he realized that he could totally imagine Wendy doing exactly that, and the full implications of her life in a lumberjack household suddenly dawned on him. Unable to think of a decent response, his gaze shifted to the window, where he noticed the van lazily roll past a red light.

“Uh, Wendy?” he said. “Aren’t you supposed to actually stop at stoplights?”

“Yeah, but the brakes are being weird.” She tried again, and the van started to vibrate as the still tires continued to slide down the pavement. Something out there, he realized, was dragging them forward.

The wind was starting to pick up outside, and he could see junk on the sidewalk rolling forward in the same direction as them, gradually picking up speed.

“Wendy, I really really think you should turn around!” he said.

“I’m… trying, but the van is being really… uncooperative,” Wendy grunted. She twisted the steering wheel back and forth, shifted the car into reverse and slammed on the gas, but all it did was slightly slow their forward movement. She spun the wheel as far left as it would go, causing the van to sway and jerking all of its passengers to the side.

“Wendy, my mom just took the van in for repairs, do you think you can go a little easy on it?” Thompson said, leaning forward.

“What’s going on up there?” Robbie asked, finally noticing that something was amiss.

“I don’t know, something weird?” Lee said. At the mention of weird, everyone in the car turned to look at Dipper, who froze at the sudden amount of attention. He steeled himself and tried to talk confidently. He had practiced all year long, and he was certain that he could control the squeak in his voice.

“I can’t be certain until I see what’s causing this,” he said, lightly gripping his hat like lots of Tough Men did in movies. “Once I can identify it, the journal should be able to tell us our best course of action.”

“Does the journal say anything about _that_?” Wendy asked, pointing straight ahead of them.

At first, Dipper couldn’t tell what she was talking about. Then, he saw it: a hole on the street, maybe seven or eight feet across, black except for gold and green streaks circling impossibly fast within it. The junk from the street was being lifted into the air around it and was spinning around the edge, going faster as it got nearer to the hole until it slipped in with a great _bang_ and a strike of blue lightning.

Dipper couldn’t remember reading about anything like it before. He pulled out the third journal, the one he carried on himself at all times, and flipped through the pages wildly. He had been through the book enough times to know that there were no entries on it, but still he thumbed through the pages. The journals always seemed to hold more secrets in them, maybe this was just one thing he had failed to notice before.

There was nothing on it, not a single drawing of a bizarre hole in the ground.

“Okay, new plan,” he said, snapping the book closed. “Guys, we’ve got to get ourselves behind a wall, something that will shield us from the pull so that we can get away from that thing.

“But I can’t get the van to stop going forward,” Wendy said. “There’s no way we can get it all the way to an alley.”

“That’s okay, I have a plan. We might have to sacrifice the van, though.”

“Are you insane?” Nate asked. “This van is pretty much our life!”

“If we don’t get out of this, we’re not going to have our lives for much longer!” Dipper cried.

“Dipper’s right!” Wendy snapped. “It’d suck to lose the van, but keeping each other safe is way more important.” She glanced at Dipper, who smiled, grateful for the support. “Dipper, have a plan?”

“Yes!” he said, the squeak in his voice betraying his excitement. He cleared his throat, then continued, “First, I need you to drive at the thing full speed.”

“Are you serious?” Lee said. His expression had given way from frustration to complete and utter confusion.

“I wasn’t finished,” Dipper said. Lee waved a hand, telling Dipper to go on. “As I was saying: drive straight at the thing with everything the van’s got. Then, at the last moment, you’ve got to swerve so that the van lands sideways on top of the hole, hopefully blocking it so that we can get away without being dragged in.”

“Hopefully?” Robbie echoed.

“Uh,” Dipper said.

“It’s got to be our best shot,” Wendy said. She slammed onto the gas, and Dipper felt himself crushed against the leather seats. Somebody in the van was definitely screaming, although he couldn’t move his head enough to figure out who it was. He could see Wendy’s teeth were gritted, and she was leaning into the steering wheel, hands gripping it so hard the veins stuck out and her knuckles turned white.

Just when Dipper was actually terrified that they were about to dive straight into the black vortex, Wendy twisted the steering wheel as far right as it would go. For a moment, the van tipped gently, and Dipper worried that it wouldn’t go all the way. Then, the tug from the vortex caused the van to go crashing to its side, right on the target.

The impact knocked the breath out of Dipper, and for a moment he hung loosely, suspended only by his seatbelt. Then, there was more shouting. Somebody opened the rear door for him, and he quickly scrambled outside, followed by the rest of the teenagers.

“This way!” Dipper yelled to them. “We can take cover in the alley!”

They all made a run for it, but stopped when they heard a large groan from the van. They turned, and could see that the force of the portal was starting to bend the van in the middle. The metal growled and groaned as it was folded inwards.

“Run!” Wendy screamed, and they ran. Dipper could feel the pull strengthening behind him, and it took all of his energy just to keep moving forward. The group dove into the alleyway and then kept running, not stopping until they were certain that they could move freely. Behind them, Dipper heard a great crunch as the van finally bent in half and was sucked away.

“Dipper,” Tambry puffed, bent over with her hands on her knees, “what… the heck… was that thing?”

Dipper didn’t answer, and the rest of the teenagers’ gazes came up to meet his own.

“I… I have no idea,” he admitted.

 

* * *

 

While everyone else was still catching their breath and freaking out a little bit, Dipper started to look around and get a feel for which direction was safest to walk in.

“Dipper, you’re not leaving already, are you?” Wendy asked.

“Dude, it’s dangerous out there,” Robbie added.

“Mabel doesn’t know that that thing is out there,” Dipper said. “I have to warn her.”

“Not just your sister,” Nate said. “The whole town is in trouble. We’ve got to tell everybody about that thing, before somebody actually falls in.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Dipper said. “You guys need to get to safety, somewhere far away. I’ll handle the townspeople.”

“No way, dude,” Wendy said, crossing her arms. “You’re a pretty smart guy, but even you can’t handle this thing by yourself. We’re helping.”

“I can handle this!” Dipper insisted. “I spent all of last summer fighting monsters, remember? I’m totally used to this sort of thing, unlike you guys. Besides, I’m 13 now, things are different.”

The older teenagers shared a look between themselves that Dipper was excluded from. Finally, Lee walked past him, and Dipper jumped back rather than get shoved aside.

“Hey, wait,” he said, only to be ignored as the rest of the group followed Lee’s lead. Wendy took up the rear, looking down on him with a height that he was still several years away from matching.

“We still need you, Dipper,” she said. “We just can’t have you doing this alone.”

Dipper looked at her, then started walking after the rest of the group. “Sure, whatever. Let’s go save the town.”

 

* * *

 

“So, Candy, remind me what we decided today?” Mabel said. She could feel some stickiness from the ice cream still left on her lip, and she tried to lick it off while Candy pulled out her yellow spiral notebook.

“In the end, we came to the conclusion that chocolate is the uncontested superior ice cream flavor, with mint chocolate chip coming in a distant second. Walnuts are the only nuts worth putting on ice cream, but should by no means be added to sorbets. Sprinkles are colorful and fun, but should best be avoided if going for a full flavor experience.”

“I love me some sprinkles!” Grenda yelled from her place on the floor of the shop. “Chocolate ones are the best.”

“I like the rainbow sprinkles,” Mabel said, her eyes turning starry. She thought for a moment of getting another bowl to celebrate their accomplishments, but then decided that even her sweet tooth was capable of saying when enough was enough. “You guys want to go back to the Mystery Shack and listen to some Several Times?”

“No way, Several Times is so over,” Grenda said. “Everybody’s listening to A Couple Days of August now!”

Mabel gasped. “Are they a group of cute boys with outrageous haircuts and witty t-shirt designs?”

“You bet!”

“You have to introduce me to the newest dream boats,” she begged.

Working together, the three were able to clean up all of their cups, spoons, and napkins and stumble outside, straight into a very panicked Dipper Pines.

Mabel saw her brother and immediately shook her head. “I’m sorry, Dipper,” she said. “You should have come with us when we offered earlier. The judging has already been decided, and the votes have been cast. You’ll have to wait until next time to-“

“Mabel, I don’t care about ice cream right now!” Dipper said. “A giant vortex opened up in the middle of the street, and I nearly got sucked in, and we have to warn people because the whole town might be in danger!”

“What!” Mabel cried. She mulled over Dipper’s words for a minute, trying to decide on a reasonable thing to do next. “So… can I see it?”

“What? No, absolutely not,” Dipper said. “Right now, we just have to make sure that no one gets near it. If they do, they’ll get sucked in, and who knows what will happen after that!”

“Hm,” Mabel hummed. “I’ve got it! We’ll set up a barricade around it!”

“A barricade made out of what, exactly?”

“You’ll see,” Mabel said. Then she grabbed Candy and Grenda by their hands and took off down the street, a plan already forming in her mind.

“Just don’t get too close to it!” Dipper yelled as they disappeared around a corner. So, Mabel was relatively safe for the time being. Now to make sure that every other resident of the town knew about their possible impending doom.

 

* * *

 

By evening, the entire population of the town had gathered just up the street from the vortex. Some police tape had been stretched across the street to prevent anyone from getting too close, but many wanted to get closer. This led to an antsy crowd in which many demanded to know what had caused the commotion in the first place. At first the officers pointed at Dipper, who was still yelling at everyone to stay back and beware the vortex. When they realized that people were really wondering about the freak hole in the ground, they shrugged and scratched their heads.

“Beats me,” Officer Blubs said. “Nobody at the police academy ever gave me the code name for a vortex that inhales everything that gets near it and explodes it into lightning.”

Stan had even drive over from the Mystery Shack to find out what all the fuss was about, dragging Soos along with him.

“Uh, Mr. Pines, are you filming this?” he asked, noticing the clunky video camera Stan had brought with him.

“As the literal definition of nothing, it’s pretty much impossible for me to take this thing back to the Shack,” Stan explained. “I figured that there had to be some way to make money off of it, though, so I’m starting a mini series. I’m calling it ‘Stan’s Guide to All of the Things that Haven’t Been Proven to Kill You, But Probably Could’. Sounds catchy, doesn’t it?”

“Oh no, not again!” Mabel called from a spot a bit beyond the police tape. As people turned to look, a line of purple clay bricks flew up into the air, twisting gracefully like birds in flight. They hovered above for a moment, then plummeted back down to Earth, landing in the vortex and creating multiple small flashes.

“Dipper,” Stan said, interrupting the boy just before he could launch into another lengthy rant, “go help your sister.”

Dipper looked around at the people, then slid under the police tape in defeat. He approached Mabel, who was kneeling down on the ground trying to stick together bricks as fast as she could. Grenda and Candy had been helping for a while, but then their parents had come and demanded that they get away from the weird hole in the ground. They had probably assumed that the twins’ parents would tell them the same thing, not realizing that Grunkle Stan would gladly throw them both in if he made some money off of it.

“Mabel?” Dipper said. His twin turned around to look at him, glue bottle still gripped in her hand. “You uh, want to take a break from that?”

“I can’t, Dipper,” she said. “Who else is going to build this wall to keep the townspeople safe? We need to protect everybody, you said so yourself.”

“Well, listen, maybe-“ And that was when, all at once, every brick ripped from its spot on the ground and floated up into the air. The twins yelped, and could only watch as the collection was sucked into the whirling vortex. The lightning strike leapt far beyond the vortex this time, over the twins’ heads, and was followed momentarily by a booming roll of thunder, something that nothing else had caused before. The thunder started with a great boom, then grew louder and louder until it seemed to be shaking them in their very cores.

“Dipper!” Mabel yelled, hands over her ears to block out the noise. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know!” Dipper yelled back. Then, he saw it: the vortex was growing. Its border expanded to a diameter of ten feet, then eleven. As the size of the vortex increased, he could feel the pull growing stronger. He grabbed Mabel’s hand and dragged her back under the police tape. The people beyond were still trying to yell above the thunder, but they quieted as Dipper rushed through them.

“The thing is getting bigger!” he yelled at the top of his voice, ignoring the way it cracked. “If you don’t get out of here soon, you might all get sucked in!”

That, finally, was enough to get them moving away from the damn thing. As a single unit, the entire town ran up the street, away from the terrifying hole in their otherwise decent pavement.

 

* * *

 

Rather than becoming a hub for finding a solution to the vortex problem, as Dipper had proposed, the Mystery Shack was dead quiet. Nobody from town visited, and even tourists seemed to be staying away, as though they could sense that something wasn’t right with the place. To Dipper, the silence seemed to hum around them, making it even harder for him to focus on his research than normal.

He scribbled notes onto a pad of paper, the second journal open in front of him. He had been through it twice already, and had been unable to find anything specific about spontaneous vortexes. So, he had settled for finding mentions of similar things. Maybe little bubbles of void floating through space held the answer, or a creature that hunted by digging a large hole and then waiting at the bottom with an open mouth. None of it matched exactly, but something _had_ to be better than nothing.

“Dipper?” Mabel mumbled from her bed across the room. “Do you think you can turn off the light and go to bed?” Her eyes were still closed, but there was a tightness in her brow that displayed her annoyance.

“Mabel, if I don’t figure out what’s going on soon enough, the whole town might be in danger,” he said. He flipped to the next page, disappointed to find that it was another entry on gnomes.

“Just don’t forget what happened the last time you totally went without sleep just to solve one of the town’s mysteries.”

Dipper’s memory brought him back to the dreadful day of the sock opera. Although he and Mabel laughed about how she had really dodged a bullet that day, he hadn’t thought about the actual events leading up to it in ages. Now, her mention brought him back to the moment he had lost his body and had been forced to float through space as a nonexistent entity. He remembered that he'd had no body left to feel with, but all the same, it had been cold.

“No worries,” he said, barely stifling a yawn. “I am never letting Bill into my body again. I like having a physical form, thank you very much.”

“Ha, yeah, I don’t think I can handle having a puppet brother a second time,” Mabel giggled. She sighed, and before drifting off to sleep, mumbled, “It’s a shame he’s such a huge jerk, you know? I bet an all-knowing demon would know what to do about that thing…”

Dipper sat bolt upright and his eyes flew towards his twin, but Mabel was already fast asleep. Quietly, he turned off the light and slid out of bed. The author of the journals had clearly never observed this thing before, and if he had, he probably wrote it down somewhere in the lost first journal. No, the journals were not going to save the town this time. If Dipper wanted to find the answer, then he was going to have to go to some outside sources.

Creeping over to his desk, he picked up the thick stack of books that he had taken with him from home. During the school year, the strangeness of Gravity Falls had remained on his mind constantly, sometimes making it hard to focus on school when he would rather have been exploring the town. To satisfy some of his curiosity, he had started collecting books about supernatural phenomena. Some had turned out to be junk, and he had been tempted to throw them out, but the obvious fakes had kept his parents from realizing how serious his interest really was.

Now, he took his small collection of legitimate texts and carried them up to the attic. This was obviously going to be a late night for him, best to let Mabel get her sleep. He kept his watch on, deciding that he would retire to their room as soon as he felt tired and then get back to research early the next morning.

At 11:30, he had written down the proceedings of his original deal with Bill, and had analyzed every point at which he might have had some say in the final outcome.

At midnight, he tossed away the first book from the pile. While simple love potions and the like were probably helpful in some situations, he doubted that they were appropriate for the matter at hand.

At 1:00, he tossed away the next one, a book specifically about demons. While the information seemed good, every chapter ended with a serious warning to never do business with them, and Dipper wasn’t in the mood for a lecture.

At 2:00, he paused. The book he had been looking through had a number of different spells, but the jargon was so thick that he was having trouble understanding exactly what each one did, or even how to cast it. Curious to know more, he cracked open another one that explained the basics of witchcraft.

At 3:00, he slammed his head into a desk. The spell he’d been reading about had been everything he had needed, but required _several_ virgin sacrifices, and he would never get desperate enough to go that far. Looking through the pages of the spell book again, he groaned and tossed it behind him. Unlike the others, which had slammed onto the ground with satisfying _cracks_ , the spell book landed pages-down and sounded more like a pathetic stumble.

At 3:30, Dipper realized that he had been staring at the wall for half an hour. He flipped through _The Basics of Spellcraft_ again, just to see if he had missed anything worthwhile.

At 4:00, he picked the demon book up off the floor. His feet dragged on the carpet as he made his way back to the desk, but still he opened the book and started to read a bit.

At 4:15, he decided that maybe the book wasn’t so bad after all. Sure, the author was very preachy when it came to making deals with demons, but they had done some interesting research on the subject, sharing a lot of information that Dipper hadn’t known before. Even if it wasn’t all that helpful to the crisis, it was enjoyable, at least.

At 4:30, he stumbled across the one thing that he knew would help him win against Bill.

At 5 in the morning, he left the house.

 

* * *

 

Mabel knew exactly what had happened as soon as she woke up to find Dipper’s bed empty. She raced downstairs still wearing her starry pink nightgown, and found her brother staring at a bowl of cereal like it was telling him all of the secrets of the town.

“Dipper, you didn’t get any sleep last night, did you?” she asked. Even though her tone was mild, Dipper jumped when he heard her.

“Maybe?” he said. “I’m pretty sure I did at one point, maybe… one? Two hours ago? What time is it now?”

“It’s 8 in the morning,” Stan said as he entered the kitchen. He walked past the siblings without looking at them, his focus already completely absorbed by the coffee pot. “You two are honorary teenagers now, aren’t you? Aren’t you supposed to be all about sleeping until noon?”

“Grunkle Stan, how could we possibly sleep when there’s a huge, beautiful world out there for us to explore?” Mabel said. “There are people to meet, things to do. I can’t spend all day sleeping.”

“There’s also a giant hole in the street,” Dipper added on.

Mabel looked back at her brother. “So, wait, did you get any sleep last night?”

“I briefly passed out around 6,” he said. “I ended up lying facedown on the ground outside for a while, where the mosquitos found me.”

Mabel looked down at her brother’s legs, which were indeed covered in red bumps. “I found orion’s belt!” he declared. “Quick, Grunkle Stan, get me a marker.”

“No way,” Dipper said. “I’m not going to let you color all over me again.”

“That’s okay,” Mabel said. “I’ll just do it when you finally pass out from exhaustion.”

“I’m not going to pass out,” Dipper said. “I’ve got a lot of important stuff to do today, and there is no way I’m going to let a little sleep get in the way of that.”

“Important stuff like cleaning the Mystery Shack,” Stan said, finally settling down at the table with his coffee. “Kids, I’ve decided that I need a vacation for the day, so you two are the cleanup crew.”

“But Grunkle Stan, Gravity Falls is literally being sucked into a hole in the ground,” Dipper said. “Isn’t that a little more important than dusting the gift shop?”

“Actually, that means today is the perfect day for cleaning,” Stan said. “With no customers coming in, you two can finally take care of the mold that’s been growing under the rug.”

The twins groaned and complained, but in the end they agreed to their great-uncle’s demands. Armed with tools for scraping, a bottle of bleach, and rags, they set to work on the green patch that had been growing beneath the gift shop’s rug.

“I can’t believe Grunkle Stan is making me do this right now,” Dipper said. Leaping down onto his scraper, he pushed it across a part of the mass, taking up some of the floorboards but failing to remove all of it from that one area. He picked up the bleach and started spraying the remainder. “I mean, I actually know how to solve this. I just need a little time to make it happen.”

“What, one of those books actually told you how to close the vortex?” Mabel asked.

“Um, well, not exactly,” Dipper said, trying to find the right way to word his solution.

Mabel, though, didn’t have the patience to wait for him. “So your books didn’t have the answer you were looking for?” she said, eyes narrowing. “If your books didn’t have the answer, then that means you would need another source to find it.”

“I mean, well, that’s not untrue,” Dipper said, mind racing to come up with an answer before Mabel.

“And it’s not like you could have gone out and found more books late last night, which means that your source came in some other form,” she continued. “And we both know that none of the people in Gravity Falls knows anything real about the weird stuff that happens here, meaning that you couldn’t have gone to a real person. And I can think of one non-person in particular who is super knowledgable about pretty much everything.” She stood suddenly, dropping her bottle. “Dipper, did you make another deal with a demon!”

“No, not yet!” he cried, then stopped himself. He thought about turning it into an excuse, saying that he was not yet desperate enough to summon Bill, but he decided that she was already mad enough without him lying to her face. “I haven’t made a deal with him yet,” he said.

“But you’re going to?” she asked, and he nearly missed the slight quiver in her voice. He looked up at her face, and while Mabel was definitely mad at him, Dipper could also see that she was scared. He mentally slapped himself. She had seen Bill using his body as a puppet, she had every right to be scared about going through it again.

“It’s not going to be like last time,” he said. “I promise.”

“How?” Mabel asked.

“Huh?”

“How can you promise that?” Now, he could see neither fear nor anger. Mabel crossed her arms, putting up a wall of strength in front of her, painted with a light coat of stubbornness.

“There’s this ritual I read about,” he started. “It wasn’t even that difficult, really. Just some common ingredients from around the forest, a little bit of blood, a couple lines of Latin, and it was done. Basically, it locked my soul inside of my body. Nobody can ever pull the two apart again. So this time, when I make the deal with Bill, he won’t actually get anything out of it.”

Mabel wasn’t looking at him, instead watching as her foot traced patterns on the wooden floor. “Doesn’t it seem a little too easy to you?” she asked. “I mean, this is _Bill_ we’re talking about. You want to be sure you’re prepared if you’re going to face him. And talking to him at all should be a last resort thing.”

“I am at the last resort, Mabel,” Dipper said. He needed her trust in him, for her to believe that he was doing the right thing. “I wouldn’t be risking this if I didn’t know that there’s no one else to turn to. But I’ve tried everywhere, and there’s really no human who’s ever seen something like this. At least, if there was, they never wrote anything about it.”

“Dipper…” Mabel sat down again. “I know that you’re worried about the town, but do you think you could hold off on this a little bit longer? I know that Soos and Wendy are looking around for answers, and I can help with your research if you’d like. We can be professional mystery twins again! Without Bill.”

Dipper wanted to say yes, but at the same time… “That thing’s getting bigger every moment. If we put it off too long, Gravity Falls might not stand a chance. I don’t want to get to that point.”

Mabel huffed. “Fine,” she said. “But I’m going to keep looking for a solution, and if I find it before you make the deal, you call it off, right?”

“Sure,” Dipper said. Privately, he welcome the idea of Mabel finding the answer before he had to face Bill again. He hated messing with the demon, so it was nice to dream that maybe someone would figure it out, and he wouldn’t have to go. After a moment, though, he pushed those thoughts away. If he hadn’t been able to find the solution, then there was no way Mabel would be able to. While she had spent the summer experiencing the same amount of weird as he had, Dipper had gone deeper, aimed to understand more. Researching the weird had become a way of life. For Mabel, it was pretty much new ground.

Right. He was going to have to face Bill. That much was decided. Leaning over the mold again, he poured on the bleach and grabbed his rag.

 

* * *

 

After cleaning the gift shop, Stan needed help getting rid of a wasp nest on the roof, after which he sent Dipper to the store to get various ointments for their stings. By the time Dipper was on his way back to the Mystery Shack, it was mid-afternoon.

The store was far enough away from the vortex that he hadn’t felt the pull from it while he was shopping, but on the way home, he noticed that the barricade had been set up further away than it had been the previous night. The tug felt like more of a nagging feeling that something wasn’t right, but it could definitely be felt from much further away.

He knew that the time had come to act before he even got back to the Shack. Mabel had hardly had any time to do her own research, but the town itself wouldn’t have much time if he didn’t step up and do something soon. He hated the idea of meeting Bill a second time, but at least this time he had a plan. His soul wasn’t going anywhere.

Dropping his purchases in the kitchen, Dipper ran up the stairs two at a time, nearly tripping at the top but managing to keep his balance. At the door to his room, he stopped and peered in. Mabel was sitting on her bed, squinting down at the laptop their parents had given her. Dipper had gotten an identical one, but looking at the screen for too long gave him a headache, and he had decided to leave it at home for the summer.

He watched her for a moment, trying to decide what to do. He needed the second journal, which was sitting beside his bed, but he didn’t want Mabel to know that he was leaving. She would definitely try to talk him out of it, and maybe even do something drastic if she got desperate, and Dipper knew that he didn’t have time to deal with that. The town needed help _now_.

He opened the door and stepped in. Mabel glanced up at the noise, then returned her focus to the computer.

“Hey Dipper,” she said, “how can you tell when one of your magic books is real?”

“I usually look for some mention of something we’ve seen here,” he said as he walked over. “If that’s not there, then there’s usually a harmless ritual I can try, just to see if the stuff actually works. If I can’t even find that, but the information is similar to other sources, then I just have to hope for the best.”

“That sounds like a lot of work to research stuff you might never actually see,” Mabel said.

Dipper shrugged and sat on his bed. “You trying to find stuff online about the vortex?”

“Trying, yes,” Mabel said. “It’s so hard! It seems like there are tons of people online who _know_ about this stuff, but when you actually look for details, everything gets all muddled and nobody has any idea what’s going on. Then, sometimes, I find someone who I think might have the answer, but there’s no proof that they even exist.”

“I know that feeling,” Dipper said. “It’s why I stick to books. Much easier to sort through the junk than it is on the internet.” Casually, he reached over to the bedside table and grabbed the journal. Mabel was still staring at the computer, so he quietly slid it inside his vest.

“Hey Dipper,” she said, startling him and so he quickly pulled out his hand. Luckily, she was still looking at the screen and didn’t seem to have noticed.

“Uh, yeah, Mabel?” he said.

“Thanks for letting me do this. You’re always protecting everybody else, I’m glad that I have the chance to protect you this time.”

“No… no problem, Mabel,” he said, pushing himself off the bed. “I think I’m… going to head downstairs. I think I left my books down there.”

“Okay, see you later,” she said. “I’ll definitely have something for you by then!”

“See you,” Dipper said, stepping out of the room and closing the door behind him.

_Wow, major guilt trip_ , he thought as he walked down the stairs. He stopped in the kitchen to grab some candles and a lighter, then set off into the woods.

 

* * *

 

Dipper wasn’t worried about getting lost in the forest. He had spent enough time exploring it the previous summer that he knew his way around pretty well, so he continued walking for a while after the Mystery Shack disappeared behind the trees.

As he walked, he got the strange creeping sensation that he was being watched, but when he looked around he couldn’t see anything. Actually, the fact that there was nothing out there made him even more nervous. Usually, there was a light hum of activity in the air. The bizarre creatures that lived in the woods had busy lives, and it was usually possible to see one or two going about their day.

As Dipper walked, though, he saw none of them. There were no manotaurs charging into trees, or werebears roaring at the sun. He couldn’t hear anything beyond the occasional sound of the wind rustling leaves. That fact, more than the feeling of being watched, was what sent shivers up his spine and made him walk a little bit faster.

Finally, he found a good spot to stop. After brushing away some sticks and leaves, the area was clear enough for him to set up the candles. He set them down in a circle, eight in total, and lit each one. Opening up the journal, he found the page with the ritual. The drawing of Bill stared up at him, and he lost any doubt that he’d been watched the whole way there. Apparently, though, Bill wanted to see if he would actually go through with this. Looking at the language of the ritual, he was starting to wonder the same thing.

A gust of wind sped through the clearing. His heart skipped a beat as the candles flickered, but none of them went out. Sighing, he straightened his back, held up the journal in front of him, and started to read.

“Triangulum, entangulum. meteforis,” he gulped, “dominus ventium. meteforis… venetisarium.” As Dipper read, he could feel the world around him starting to change. The wind grew, louder and harder, but the candles did not flicker. A warmth started to grow within him, building and building until he was certain that his insides were on fire. He wanted to yell, but instead his mouth opened and he started chanting. “Asetnoheptus, asetnoheptus, asetnoheptus, asetnoheptus, asetnoheptus!”

There was a flash, and then the world around Dipper turned monochrome. The wind slowed, then stopped, although he could see blades of grass still bent over from the force. At his feet, the candles continued to burn.

Bill did not appear. Dipper looked around. Had he done something wrong? Did he not complete the ritual properly? He looked through the steps in the journal again, but he couldn’t find anything else he was supposed to do. At this point, Bill was supposed to appear.

“Bill!” he called into the black and white world. “Are, are you here?”

“Pine Tree!” a voice said behind him, and Dipper screamed. He whipped around to find Bill leaning against a tree, twirling his golden cane. “So good of you to visit again! How are things? How’s your sister? She looked so sweet the last time we met, I _can’t wait_ to see her again!”

“I’m not here to play games, Bill,” Dipper said. He tried to sound strong and held his ground, staring into Bill’s eye with both of his own.

“Of course not,” Bill said. “No one ever is.” He flew close to dipper, moving towards his right side so that it was just one eye facing another. “You’re here to make a deal.” He glided back easily, leaning backwards and putting his feet up on an imaginary coffee table. “You humans really never learn, do you? I mean, I was pretty clever the first time, with the whole puppet trick, but even you should have figured out that deals with me always end in my favor.”

“That’s why this time, I’m making some demands,” Dipper said. “I get my end first, and then you’re clear about exactly what you want out of me.”

“Oh, Pine Tree, you’ve grown so much!” Bill sang. “Look how assertive you are now, I’m sure Red just loves that about you.”

Dipper blushed at the mention of Wendy. Unlike everything else that had changed over the year, his crush had stuck on. “Do you know what that vortex is in the middle of downtown?”

“That thing? Seen them a thousand times before,” Bill said. “The one you’ve got right now isn’t so bad, but they get to be a problem once they grow to 6 miles wide.”

Dipper gulped. “So you can tell me how to get rid of it?”

“Sure can,” Bill said. “In fact, I’ll make you a deal right here.” He flew close to Dipper again and put a thin arm around the boy’s shoulders. “Pine Tree, I like you. You’re probably my best customer, even if you did get in the way of my plans last time. As a proper business owner, I want to be able to build a relationship with my clients. So, right now, I’m willing to give you the answer you’re looking for on the house. Sound good?”

Dipper blinked at the demon. It did sound good. Way, way too good. In the demon book, he had read that demons would often try to get the upper hand when making a deal. In order to keep himself safe, it was important that he remain in control of the transaction.

“No,” he said. “I’m not interested in handouts. I want to make a deal.”

Bill’s arm released, and he floated a few inches away. Then, he shrugged. “Sure, Pine Tree, I’m sure I can make that happen.” He poofed a pad of paper and a quill into existence, quickly scribbling something onto the paper. “These are the instructions for getting rid of that vortex. Make sure you go through the whole list, or it will tear open again.” He tore off the sheet and handed it to Dipper. Ignoring the dark red color of the ink, he read the ritual over. It seemed simple enough, definitely possible once he got back into reality.

“In return for this,” he said, “you can have my body for one day. No more, got that?”

“Of course,” Bill said. “I’ll take good care of it.”

A blue flame erupted around his hand. Dipper stared at it. The moment had come. Carefully, he reached over and clasped the demon’s hand in his own. They shook.

“Oh Pine Tree,” Bill said. “I was impressed with you for a little bit there, but I guess you humans really are just as dumb as you loo-“

The world erupted in a bright white flash. Dipper closed his eyes against the harsh light, and he could feel Bill’s hand tighten in his grasp. Then, the hand disappeared. There was no sound, no heat, although he could feel the ground shaking beneath him. Just before he fell over, the shaking started to slow. He could see that the light was dimming behind his eyelids, so he cautiously cracked one eye open and squinted at his surroundings.

He was standing in a crater. The ground was black and charred, although he could see embers glowing a bright orange. Miraculously, a tree had fallen but completely missed him, the green branches almost close enough to tickle his nose. He looked up at where it had once stood, and all he could see was blue sky.

He stared for a moment longer before pumping both fists into the still air.

“Woohoo!” he yelled to the silent forest. “I did it! I beat Bill!”

He danced in place, hands still in the air, before he noticed a curious sensation. His mouth started to tingle, a bit like the feeling of a limb that had been slept on for too long. He gently touched his lips, and as his fingers poked along, his lips went numb. No amount of pressure could produce any feeling.

He went to comment on the strangeness of it, but found that he couldn’t move any part of his mouth. He stuck his fingers between his lips, just to be sure he wasn’t imagining it, and found his tongue to be dead still. As he pulled his hand out and wiped the saliva onto his pants, he felt the tingling start in his fingers. It moved, first covering all of his fingers, then his hands. He tracked the tingling with his eyes as it climbed up his arms, reached his elbows, then his shoulders. It then started up in his toes, moving upwards just as quickly until his entire body felt like a bag of poprocks.

When his legs went numb, he couldn’t move his arms to catch his fall. He fell forward and landed on his face in the still-warm dirt. The numbness continued to spread, reaching his stomach and climbing, climbing, until it reached his chest.

He couldn’t breath. He tried, tried his hardest, but he could no longer tell his lungs to expand. Inside, he was panicking, trying to figure out what was going on, but on the outside, he was dead calm.

Dipper could feel his lungs screaming for air, the pain building as each moment passed without a breath. Just as he was starting to feel dizziness cloud his thoughts, his mouth started to work.

The thing was, Dipper wasn’t the one making it move.

“You’ve really done it now, Pine Tree,” his voice said, releasing the last of the air in his chest.

Quietly, Dipper passed out.

 


	2. Demons Don't Know How to Nod

The sound of voices tickled his ears and wormed into his mind. They were shouting, calling out for someone.

Their cries were disturbing the slumber of the forest.

 

* * *

 

The voices were closer now, still shouting the same words over and over again.

“Dipper! Where are you?”

He heard his name, recognized that it belonged to him, but he couldn’t move to acknowledge it. His body felt like a useless block of wood. He chose not to fight it.

 

* * *

 

Footsteps, running and kicking up dirt so that it sprayed into his face. A voice came near him, desperately sobbing.

“Dipper! Can you hear me? Are you okay?”

“Mabel,” another said, not far behind her. Grunkle Stan. “Take it easy. Is he breathing?”

He couldn’t remember.

 

* * *

 

He was in someone’s arms, his head gently tucked into the crook of their elbow. A deep, musky smell rolled into his nose, and he groaned.

“Dipper?” Grunkle Stan said, and Dipper decided that he was nowhere near ready to be awake.

 

* * *

 

He was in his bed, facing the ceiling. Someone had taken his shoes off for him and tucked him into bed, although they had left his vest on. With warm light still streaming in from the window and a heavy blanket on top, he was starting to sweat under his layers.

Dipper tried moving one arm experimentally. Starting with the fingers, he gently bent every joint up his arm and flexed his little muscles. Every part worked just the way he wanted it to, and he could feel every little twitch. The numbness was gone.

He hadn’t opened his eyes yet, but now he cracked them open slightly.

The yellow sunlight streaming in made him shut his eyes again and roll over. It was much too bright and set a shot of pain straight through his head. Across the room, he heard someone stir in the other bed.

“Dipper?” Mabel said.

“Mm,” he mumbled.

“Dipper!” she cried, jumping out of bed and rushing to his side. He could feel as one hand leaned onto the bed while the other touched his shoulder. “Are you okay? Do you need anything?”

“Few more minutes,” he grumbled, falling back into unconsciousness before Mabel could reply.

 

* * *

 

Dipper knew that he was dreaming, the same way he didn’t need to question whether or not he was alive. He hadn’t had a lucid dream in many years, but now that he did he wasn’t sure what to do about it.

For one thing, he was falling in the bottomless pit. Like the fact that he was dreaming, he didn’t need to question where he was, despite having nothing to actually indicate that. When he looked up, he couldn’t see the opening to the pit, only the same blackness that surrounded him on all other sides. Below him, a distant pinprick of light was gradually growing.

He watched the pinprick, not sure whether he was meeting it or it was coming for him. As it came closer, he was unconcerned to discover it was a triangle spilling yellow light into the darkness. He kept getting closer and closer, and every time he though he was about to pass through it, it turned out that it was much larger than he had realized. Closer and closer, the triangle grew, stretching across the black void until it was all he saw when he looked down.

Then, all of a sudden, he knew he was about to hit it. As he braced himself for the impact, a great eye opened in the center of the triangle. Unlike the rest of the shape, it glowed with a deep, menacing red, and he heard its voice throughout the void.

_Pine Tree_ , it said, and that was all Dipper heard before he crashed through the slit pupil.

 

* * *

 

Dipper awoke in a tangle of sweaty bedsheets. He gasped and looked around frantically, trying to find the source of the voice. Despite the eye having been a dream, he was certain that it was Bill who had spoken.

The room was empty and dark. It was nighttime, so sunlight no longer glared through the window, although he was able to see that someone had left a glass of water for him by the bed. He took it and drank the glass in a few rapid, desperate gulps, grateful for the feeling of the liquid running down his throat.

Setting the glass down, he looked around the room again. Nothing seemed to have changed much from that morning. Mabel’s laptop was still sitting on her bed, wide open, and several of his junk books were lying in a pile on the floor nearby. The door was cracked open, and he could see that there were lights on downstairs. Voices gently drifted into the room, muffled so that he couldn’t tell what anyone was saying. He hoped that they weren’t talking about him.

He pushed himself into a sitting position and placed his socked feet on the floor. His shoes lay beside the bed, tossed aside, one set of laces still tied in a perfect knot. He shucked off his vest and let it fall behind him onto the bed before lifting the rest of himself off.

His body felt off. A tingling sensation ran through it as soon as he stood up, though not nearly as bad as it had been before he had passed out. Then, the memories of his final moments slammed back into him, and he shivered. He had been certain that he was about to die, but then he didn’t. So, what on Earth had happened?

The tingling continued, moving throughout his body, and he realized that it was centralized in his right eye. A feeling of dread gripped him, and he softly touched the eyelid. It was still there, at the very least, but that did little to ease his bad feelings. Despite his anxieties, he started a slow shuffle out of the room. Everything hurt, forcing him to go slow, but it meant that nobody downstairs heard as he inched open the bedroom door.

The voices became clearer as he exited the room. Grunkle Stan’s gruff voice came through easily, although he could also make out Mabel, Soos, and Wendy’s. There was also the voice of a man he had never heard before, and he was tempted to go figure out who the newcomer was. The tingling suddenly became a stab, and his hand shot up to his eye. The pain dissipated.

_Okay, bathroom first_ , he decided, and he made his way over, shutting the door behind him. He flicked the lights on, and immediately shrieked into his hands.

The eye staring back at him was not his own. The iris had been scrubbed of its old, warm brown, and had been filled in with a sickly yellow the color of a harvest moon. The pupil was elongated like a snake’s eye, and in the sudden light it folded until it was the width of a toothpick.

Tears brimmed in his left eye.

“Oh my god, oh my god, what did I do?” he yelled into the mirror, stepping away from his own reflection.

Then, he heard someone pounding up the stairs. His cry had gotten their attention.

“Dipper, are you awake?” he heard Mabel say. He stood frozen to the spot, unwilling to call out to her.

“Are you in there?” Mabel was approaching the bathroom door, close enough that he could hear her footsteps. There were more people coming up the stairs, all trying to call out to him.

Just as he was about to say something, he found that he couldn’t. The tingling had moved from the eye to his mouth, numbing it and making it useless to him. Just as he thought he was about to have another episode, his voice started working on its own.

“I am awake,” it said, shocking him so greatly that he didn’t bother covering his mouth. “Some privacy would be great right now, family. I haven’t released my bodily fluids in several hours, and I would like to be alone for a moment.”

Silence on the other side. Then, Grunkle Stan’s voice: “It’s been a rough day, let the kid pee.” The voices all agreed, and with a symphony of clomps made their way back down the stairs. Dipper was alone again.

Well, not really.

His voice was returned to him suddenly, and all of the words he’d been trying to say spilled out.

“Don’t come in!” he said to the empty room. “I need… I need…” He looked around, then back in the mirror. Although both eyes were looking back at him, he felt certain that the yellow eye did so with greater intensity, waiting for him to say something.

Cautiously, he approached the mirror and tried his voice again. “Bill?” he said, and immediately his mouth went numb again.

“Good morning to you too, Pine Tree!” it said, the right eye pulling into a smile even as the rest of his face grimaced. “Or should I say good evening? You humans sure have a way of wasting your limited days away. Most other sentient creatures have evolved beyond sleep, but your pesky genetics cling on to all sorts of useless remnants of the past!”

Dipper wanted to scream again, but he still wasn’t in control of his mouth. Desperate to take back the conversation, he roughly slapped himself across the face. It stung, and Bill lost control with a slight, “Oof.”

“Oh my god,” he said again. He stared at himself in the mirror, touched his face over and over. “What did I do? How did this happen?”

The hand froze and then dropped down to his side. He stared down at it before his head moved so that he was facing the mirror again.

“You had to cast _that_ spell,” Bill said through Dipper’s mouth. “Normally, I’m pretty good at sniffing it out, but I guess the musk of manhood covered it up this time.”

Dipper stepped towards the mirror, his left arm dangling limply beside him.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

Bill pulled his mouth into a sick grin, and it made Dipper want to throw up. “That spell you used, to keep your soul in your body? It’s not meant to be used to ‘beat demons’, or however you said it earlier. It was created to avoid worst-case scenarios, like, for instance, letting an all-powerful dream demon wreck havoc in the physical world.

“Stop with the vagueness and get to the point,” Dipper demanded.

The grin disappeared. “That spell meant that I couldn’t pull you out of your body when we made the deal. It did nothing to keep me out, though.”

Realizing his mistake, Dipper’s left eye grew wide. At the same time, the right eye squinted, creating a squished, confused expression.

Bill wasn’t done talking. “And now that I’m here, Pine Tree, I fall under that same protection. We’re both locked in.”

So, maybe Dipper panicked. Maybe he threw a punch at the mirror, and maybe he cracked it, and maybe he cut up his knuckles in several places. He still wasn’t in control of his mouth, and Bill laughed at the pain, chuckled as he noticed drops of blood sliding down the cracked surface.

They both stared at the hand for a minute as dark red blood oozed onto his skin, filling in the folds of his knuckles and turning into larger drops that threatened to drip onto the floor.

Bill continued to laugh while Dipper searched for bandages and disinfectant with the uninjured hand, and continued chuckling ever after he had run it under water.

“Bodily pain is hilarious!” he cried, making Dipper drop the bandaid he’d been putting on. It fell to the floor, landing perfectly sticky-side down. Dipper slapped himself again, getting back his mouth.

“Bill!” he said, lifting up both hands in frustration. “I know that being a human is some big joke to you, but you’ve got to let me at least look after my body. If we’re going to be stuck in this thing together, we might as well keep it functional. So will you please shut up for a minute and let me clean this mess up!”

Bill didn’t respond, and Dipper didn’t feel tingling in any part of his body, so he finished cleaning and bandaging the wounds. Although it was impossible to tell for sure, he had the feeling that Bill was watching every movement carefully.

When he was finished, he held out his hand to look at his handiwork. Because of Mabel, Stan didn’t own any flesh-colored bandaids, so his knuckles were a bright collage of colors and cartoon animals. It was better than getting blood everywhere, at least.

“Are you done?” Bill asked.

“Yeah,” Dipper said. He looked back into the cracked mirror and stared into the right eye. He knew that they were still waiting for him downstairs, but he still didn’t know how he was going to face his friends looking the way he did. Stalling for time, he leaned closer to the mirror. “So, how do we get you out?”

“I have no idea!” Bill said brightly. Dipper wanted to scream.

“I thought you knew everything,” he said instead. “How do you not know how to reverse this?”

“I don’t know _everything_ ,” Bill said. “Just the things I have been allowed to observe in your world. And apparently, whoever created this spell worked very hard to ensure that I never observed the ways to reverse it. You had to choose the one spell intended to keep me still.”

“That’s just fantas–” Dipper started to say. He stopped. “Wait, so it’s possible that there’s a spell out there that can reverse this, I just have to find it?”

“There is a very small chance that such a thing _might_ exist, yes,” Bill said. “Then again, how mad can I drive you by saying that it definitely exists out there somewhere?”

He didn’t need to. Maybe was good enough for Dipper, almost. “How do I know you’re not lying about all of this?” he asked.

The right eye glared at him. “I have plans of my own that I can’t continue while stuck in the physical world. I don’t have time to be stuck in here until your bones turn to dust. Ruining your life for a day sounded like fun, but I didn’t make a deal for this.”

“I didn’t either,” Dipper said. “So, for now, the two of us have to work together to get ourselves out of this mess.”

“Right,” Bill agreed. “What’s that head motion you humans do to affirm what someone’s said?”

Dipper nodded his head up and down. When he stopped, Bill immediately took over, mimicking the motion several times before he let Dipper’s head rest.

With that conversation over, Dipper knew that he had one more before he could get on with finding a solution, and he expected the next one to be much harder. He opened the bathroom door and looked down the stairs where voices were still drifting up towards him. Without hearing the words, he knew that they were worried.

Dread gripped him again, but it wasn’t the same as before. Instead of a sick fear that made his insides coil, a current of worry was running through him. He didn’t want everyone to be mad at him for his actions, while at the same time he didn’t want them to worry for his safety. He had gotten himself into this mess, and he would be able to get himself out.

He was so busy worrying himself silly that he didn’t notice as his mouth went numb once again.

“Pines family and assorted teenagers!” he yelled down the stairs. “I have taken Dipper’s body and intend to use it for my own personal benefit, including destroying the journals and possibly wrecking havoc across town!”

Instantly there were feet running towards them again.

“Bill, why would you say that!” Dipper yelped. He tried to run away, but the demon had his legs firmly fastened in place. He only had time to notice that before Mabel tackled him, pinning his body to the floor.

“I can’t believe you came back!” she yelled.

“Mabel, it’s not what you think,” Dipper cried, but she wasn’t listening.

“Didn’t you get it the last time? Nobody,” he hand formed a fist, “steals my brother’s body,” raised it high above her head, “and gets away with it!”

At that moment, Stan turned the lights on, and the siblings were finally able to look each other in the eyes. The different irises made Mabel pause long enough for Dipper to jump in.

“It’s me, Dipper,” he said. “I’m… I’m stuck in here with him.”

“You’re lying!” she said, although he could see her resolve faltering. “That’s all you ever do. You lie, and you steal things that don’t belong to you. You’re just a demon.”

“I’m not lying,” he insisted. “Mabel, remember that spell I told you about? It worked, I’m still here, but now Bill’s here, too. I really screwed up this time.” He looked away from her, at Grunkle Stan, Wendy, and Soos, who were all watching wordlessly. A surge of guilt, cold and hard, pushed into his chest, and it took great strength for him to push past it and say, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know that this was going to happen. I should have trusted you more.”

“Dipper…” Mabel whispered before she wrapped her arms around her brother and pulled him up into a hug. Despite the uncomfortable position, Dipper gently put his arms around her as well.

“Oh Shooting Star, I missed you, too, but don’t you think we should save this until we’re somewhere more private?” Bill said, bursting into laughter.

Mabel jumped away and was only able to stare as Bill became giddy at his own joke. Dipper hit himself again, though lighter this time, which got the demon to calm down some.

Stan walked over, lifting the boy up by one arm. “Dipper,” he said. “I don’t understand what’s going on here, but we’ve got a doctor downstairs who’s been waiting for you to wake up. He just wants to ask you a few questions, and then you should go to bed.”

“Would a doctor know what to do about half-demonic possession?” Wendy asked.

“A modern human doctor?” Bill asked. “Definitely not. Only those who can perceive the fifth dimension can _begin_ to comprehend the existence of souls.”

“He just wants to make sure you don’t have a concussion,” Stan said.

“I don’t.”

“Sorry, Dipper, but your parents insisted that I take a medical professional’s word over a child’s.”

“That wasn’t me,” Dipper said. “Bill said that. Also, side note, I’m a teenager now, not a child.”

Nobody heard his comment all that well, though, as the real consequences of a half-possession started to occur to each of them, one by one. Two eyes, one brown and one yellow, stared up at their faces, waiting for a reaction that never came. Instead, Stan pulled Dipper’s body towards the stairs, Bill reacting quickly enough to keep their legs moving at the same speed.

 

* * *

 

The doctor said that he wasn’t worried about a concussion, but that they should call if Dipper started displaying any symptoms in the near future. Bill spoke several times throughout the checkup, causing just as many long, awkward pauses.

“There is one thing, doc,” he said upon being asked if Dipper had anything else that he was worried about. “You see, recently, I have shed my perpetual fear of women and have found myself, on several occasions, looking at their butts. I don’t know why this is happening to me, but I know that I do not want to end up on that one show about weird addictions. Do you have any pills that can fix my attraction to women’s rear ends?”

The doctor gave Stan the name of a puberty book, and then left. Dipper’s cheeks burned, but Bill held his throat, refusing to let him release a groan of embarrassment.

Soos and Wendy hadn’t wanted to leave until they knew that Dipper was safe. Now, they were changing their definition of ‘safe’ to ‘no immediate threat of permanent brain damage’. They were still worried nearly sick, but they also needed sleep.

Before she left, Wendy leaned down and said, “Don’t do anything stupid.” It was perfect in that it was directed at both inhabitants of Dipper’s body. To Bill, it was a warning: do anything to hurt Dipper, and she would end him. To Dipper, it was meant in humor, but also carried a hint of the worry she was carrying with her. Dipper’s head nodded, although neither of the inhabitants was entirely sure who did it.

Soos just gave him a hug. It was the best thing Dipper could have asked for, and Soos was even kind enough to ignore Bill’s complaints.

Then they left, and it was just three bodies left in the Mystery Shack.

“You two… er, three, should go to bed, now,” Stan said. “We’re not done talking about this, but it’s late, and you both, uh, all, need rest.”

“Right,” Dipper said. “G’night, Grunkle Stan.”

“Sleep tight,” Bill added, although no one but Dipper noticed.

The twins climbed the stairs together, not looking at each other. They got ready for bed in silence, and it wasn’t until both were sitting in bed with the lights still on that Mabel spoke.

“Dipper,” she said, “are you okay in there?”

“Yeah,” he said before Bill could interject. “I guess. It’s… really weird.”

“Pfft, try going from an incorporeal entity to a physical body with feeling,” Bill said. “Then you’ll understand the meaning of weird.”

Mabel was staring at him now, and Dipper was aware how strange it must have looked to her. To him, it was obvious who was doing the talking at any given moment. It was weird to hear his own voice talk back to him, but he never got confused over who was saying what. To everyone on the outside, though, it was only one voice, and except for some tonal differences, he and Bill sounded exactly the same.

“We’ll try to work on that,” he said hurriedly. “We’ll find some way to make conversation less confusing, I swear. This is just going to take some getting used to.”

“Okay,” Mabel said. She flicked off the lamp beside her bed and nestled into her sheets. Looking back at Dipper, she said, “I hope this isn’t something that we _need_ to get used to. I hope we’re able to fix this soon.”

“You and me both,” his voice said.

 

* * *

 

Dipper couldn’t sleep, his mind still abuzz with the events of the day. Memories of nearly dying kept coming back to him, as well of flashes of dread for the future. He had put up with a lot the last summer. He had ended many days just glad to have survived another adventure, and often wondered why he put his life on the line so frequently. This, though, was different. This was fear in the moment, as well as for the future. It surrounded him like a bubble.

Added to that was the fact that he could feel Bill moving his body around, trying out different parts to see what they did. His fingers wiggled and his arms flexed. His feet kicked a few times, quickly once, then slowly, stretching out his feet in time with the legs. At one point, his eyes snapped open and then shut just as quickly, squeezing to the point of discomfort before Bill moved onto the next body part.

Dipper had had enough. While Bill was still messing with his arms, he rolled himself out of bed and onto his legs, miraculously not falling over. The arms stilled for a moment, clearly surprised, but as Dipper was walking out they reached over and stripped the blanket off of his bed, then carefully draped it around his shoulders as he marched down the stairs. Dipper found the whole thing odd, as the house wasn’t all that cold, but decided that there were more important things to be discussed in the present.

Downstairs, he sat himself down on Stan’s chair in front of the TV, nestling into the blanket around him.

“Bill,” he hissed, aware of the two people who were actually managing to get some sleep, “ _what_ are you doing?”

“Just testing some things out, Pine Tree,” Bill responded, and Dipper hated the way his own voice managed to sound so innocent. “I haven’t inhabited a body since last summer, it takes some getting used to.”

“Bill, I need to sleep,” Dipper said. “If you don’t cut it out, we’re both going to be exhausted tomorrow. Even if you haven’t had a body in a while, you have to remember what being sleep-deprived is like, don’t you?”

He felt Bill lower his eyebrows, and knew that his expression was one of disdain. “That was… uncomfortable,” he admitted. He pulled the blanket a little tighter around them while Dipper leaned further into the chair. “But I’ve got things to be working on,” he continued, “I don’t have time to be stuck in more of your weird human dreams.”

“You can see my dreams?” Dipper asked

“Unfortunately,” Bill said. “They’re so boring, no imagination in this head at all. I’d love to add a little spice to them, but I’m stuck just watching.”

Dipper sighed, wondering if they had reached a real point of contention when an idea came to him. “If my dreams were more interesting, would you be willing to sleep?” he asked.

Bill was silent for a moment, then said, “Only if you gave me complete control over your dreamscape.”

“Can I do that?” Dipper asked, already disliking the direction this was headed but not really seeing any other option.

“Of course!” Bill said. “As soon as you start dreaming, just call out to me, and I’ll get to work.” He was grinning, and even while wearing it on his own face Dipper knew that there was something menacing behind it.

“Fine,” Dipper said. “Then we’re falling asleep right now. No more movement, okay?”

“We’re falling asleep here?” Bill asked. “Don’t humans normally sleep in beds?”

“Normally, yes,” Dipper said. “Mabel needs sleep, though, and I don’t trust you not to do something stupid while I’m still half-asleep.”

“Pine Tree, you wound me,” Bill said, but he still settled down and let Dipper make them comfy in the armchair and shut his eyes. There was still a slight tingle running through his body, but Bill wasn’t moving anything around anymore, and he was finally able to fall into a pleasant sleep.

 

* * *

 

Dipper was dreaming. Again, he was surprised that he was lucid at all, but he didn’t take any time to wonder about it again. Instead, he cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted into the void: “Bill! Can you hear me?”

There was a puff of smoke and a _bang_ , and Bill appeared, twirling his cane and looking around merrily. He looked down at his triangular body and spun in the air, appreciating the sharp edges and weightlessness.

“It’s good to be back!” he said. Dipper wondered if the demon had forgotten that he was even there, but then the yellow eye turned to him, and the two stared at each other once again. “Pine Tree,” Bill said, “you’re missing my lovely addition.”

Dipper touched his right eye. Of course he couldn’t see it, but he believed that Bill was telling the truth. He suddenly became aware that he had complete control of his body, and relief swept through him like an easy tide. In his dreams, at least, he was free.

Well, not entirely. Bill was still staring at him.

“So, you want to get started on this dream thing?” Dipper asked.

Instead of answering, Bill vanished from existence, and Dipper suddenly found himself inside a maze of dead cattle. What followed was a series of impossibly hard challenges, several of which were literally impossible due to Dipper’s lack of knowledge on the royal hierarchy of mindscape beings. Whenever he failed a challenge, Bill would whip up one of his worst dreams from childhood: there was the one when his entire school tried to ride in a hot air balloon, and another where he was told to swim in a lake of pudding without eating any. They might not have been as horrifying as they were when he was a child, but hearing Bill’s laughter throughout put him on edge.

At the end of the third and final challenge, he and Bill stood before a massive crowd of people. They all had the same face, the only thing to differentiate one from another their bizarre hairstyles. Dipper got the sense that Bill didn’t really know what humans looked liked, because he saw one person in the crowd who had a literal rock sitting on their head.

“Pine Tree,” Bill said, eye closed solemnly, “tonight, you haven’t really proven yourself to be very brave or heroic. Your attempts at solving my riddles were mostly met with failure, and your few successes only came when you used your limited number of hint coins. Frankly, I’m embarrassed for you, but this has to end somehow, and it’s much easier to do it this way than to try to throw you into The Pit of One Thousand Screaming Faces. So, Pine Tree, on behalf of all of the citizens of your dream world, I would like to present you with this award, which you definitely did not earn.”

He handed Dipper a large, green-tinted medallion with the words ‘Pretty Terrible Job’ engraved into the surface. In place of a ribbon, a string of twine was looped through the medal’s hole. It looked like it would snap as soon as he put weight on it, but Dipper still put it around his neck and bowed to the dead audience. A gong burst into existence behind him, and Bill smacked it hard enough to send both of them tumbling back into reality.

 

* * *

 

Dipper woke with a start. Mabel was standing before him, a worried expression on her face. As soon as his eyes were open, she rushed forward and touched his shoulder.

“Dipper, what are you doing down here?” she asked. “I woke up and you were gone, I thought Bill might have done something.”

Dipper went to answer, but found that he couldn’t. Bill had control of his mouth, but the demon wasn’t talking. For some reason, he was just sitting there, holding it closed. The concern on Mabel’s face was growing. This was _not_ how he had wanted to start the day.

He flapped his arms gently, glad to find that they were still in his control. Gently, he patted his face several times, and it seemed to give Bill the message.

“Pine Tree can’t answer right now,” he yawned. He clearly hadn’t yawned much in his existence, as it came out weak and didn’t really satisfy his body’s need for oxygen. Rather than try again, though, Bill plowed on, “It seems like I’ve been left in charge of our voice for the day, and he has been demoted to limb organizer.”

“What?” Mabel said. “What do you mean, left in charge? By who?”

“His body,” Bill said in a tone that obviously called for a shrug. Unfortunately, Dipper was caught off guard and didn’t catch it in time to deliver the proper timing, so he let it slide completely. “We were able to switch around freely yesterday, but it’s not surprising that we woke up today with our body parts already decided. This body wasn’t built to handle two beings, so it might do weird things sometimes trying to make everything work.”

“So is Dipper okay?” Mabel asked. “Can he hear me?”

Dipper gave a thumbs up, which made her giggle, at least. Still, it wasn’t proper communication. He wanted to look around for something, but it seemed that Bill had complete control of his head, so he couldn’t even move his left eye anymore. Frustrated, he slid off the chair and turned his entire body both directions, forcing his eyes to turn with it.

“Is that Dipper doing that?” Mabel asked, taking a step back to avoid Dipper’s awkward movements.

“Yep,” Bill said. “I think he’s looking for something.”

Dipper led them into the kitchen, where he started rooting through drawers. It was a bit of a pain, because Bill liked to take his time actually looking down at the contents, meaning that Dipper would have to stick his hand in blindly for several seconds before he actually knew what he was searching through. A couple of times he jabbed himself with a fork, and he felt Bill chuckle.

Finally, after lots of annoying searching, he found them: a pen and a pad of paper.

“Dipper, that’s brilliant!” Mabel said. “We can pass notes to each other, like we’re on an important mission or something. This is going to be so much fun!”

Dipper was already done writing his note.

_Mabel, I can hear you just fine, we don’t both need to write notes._

Mabel rolled her eyes. “No fun,” she whined, but then her smile reappeared. “I’m so excited that we can still talk to each other. I was so worried that I was going to have to put up with Bill alone all day.”

“I am standing here,” Bill said. “Just because it’s Pine Tree’s body doesn’t mean I’m not. I’m real; I have feelings, too.”

_Ignore him._

Mabel laughed, and Dipper figured that things might turn out alright after all.

Grunkle Stan arrived downstairs soon enough, and cooked the only thing he seemed to know how: scrambled meat. Dipper’s stomach growled, and he suddenly realized that he hadn’t eaten since the morning before. So, when a plate of food arrived in front of him, he grabbed his silverware and tried to dig in. The only problem was, Bill wouldn’t open his mouth. He sat there with the fork up to his face for a full minute before reaching over and grabbing his pen and paper.

_Bill, I’m starving. You have to eat._

“How?” Bill asked, and Dipper wanted to slap himself. Of course, Bill was the one in control of their head, and hitting the demon again wasn’t on the list of things he had planned for the morning.

_Have you seriously never eaten before?_

“I never keep physical forms very long,” Bill said. “Too much maintenance, like this whole eating thing. While normally I am all for a game of ‘risk blocking my windpipe with the flesh of animals’, I’m in more of a cautious mood today.”

_It’s not like that. Please, Bill, just eat it._

“I don’t think-“ Dipper shoved the fork in his open mouth, lucky to not stab himself in the process.

Bill sat with Dipper’s mouth still open for a moment, trying to understand what had happened. Once he was all caught up, he slowly closed his mouth and let Dipper slide the fork out. He opened and closed the jaw mechanically, still trying to understand how eating actually worked, but it was something, at least. Dipper could even taste the meal, although it was more bland than his taste normally was, like a sheet of tissue paper was lying on top of his tongue.

The meal was a long, excruciating process. Getting Bill to eat was a bit like feeding a toddler, although maybe a bit less messy. The demon took his time with every movement so as not to bite himself, and chewed the food into paste to avoid choking. At one point he did try to hurry up a bit, but he immediately chomped onto the tongue with Dipper’s canines hard enough that even Dipper was able to feel it. After that, it was slow going once again.

Dipper had never been so grateful for a meal to be over, save last Thanksgiving when he had to sit next to their extra nosy grandmother. That was a conversation he would have liked to forget, but at least he had been able to taste the food.

_Any plans for the day?_ Dipper wrote, and then showed the pad to Stan. His great uncle didn’t bother questioning the communication method.

“More cleaning,” he said. “You two did a fine job in the gift shop yesterday, so we might as well tackle the museum. Still not getting any visitors on account of the hole in the street-“

Dipper jumped out of his chair, knocking it over and nearly tripping himself. He wanted to shout, but Bill didn’t seem to understand what was going on, so he settled for waving his hands wildly.

“I don’t know what Pine Tree’s trying to communicate to us,” Bill admitted, looking at each of the flapping limbs in turn. “Maybe this is surprise? Or perhaps jubilation?”

“I think he forgot about the vortex,” Mabel said. “Don’t beat yourself up about it too bad, I know that I had other things on my mind. Heh, you had something else _in_ your mind. I bet that’s an okay excuse not to be the hero of Gravity Falls for a day.”

Dipper wasn’t listening, instead trying to figure out the fastest way to get into town. He grabbed his pen and paper and quickly scribbled his message to the family.

_I have to get to it. Bill told me how to close the portal, I can fix this._

“Wait, really? You know how?” Mabel asked, surprised.

_Yes! Can we go now, please?_

Mabel looked to Grunkle Stan, who shrugged.

“I don’t actually care how dusty the museum is. Makes the stuff look more authentic, if you ask me. If this saving the town business is really important to you kids, I guess I could drive you.”

Dipper ran up and hugged his Grunkle. Bill stared the man straight in the eyes, a look of discomfort heavy on his face.

“This wasn’t my idea,” he said.

“I would hope not,” Stan replied.

 

* * *

 

The vortex had gotten much, much bigger. Before they had even reached the street it had formed on, Dipper could start to feel the tingle of something pulling them forward. He looked across the back seat to Mabel, who was watching out the window at the streets of Gravity Falls.

The town appeared to be deserted. Nobody was out walking in the streets or driving their cars around. Sometimes, they passed by shops with people standing in the windows, but they were clearly biding their time until they had to step outside again. Watching objects getting slowly pulled in the direction of the vortex, Dipper couldn’t blame them.

Stan’s car finally reached a police barricade, where the town’s two officers were sitting in their car with a BABBA song playing. They looked up when Stan and the twins got out, and immediately Officer Blubs got out and walked over to Dipper, who was wearing a pair of borrowed sunglasses to mask the right eye.

“You here to finally fix this thing?” the officer asked, gently adjusting his hat to better shade his face in the sun.

“I believe so” Bill said. “I hear the town requires my services?”

“Uh, yeah,” Blubs said. “Weren’t you the one who said we needed to close off the street until you found a solution?”

Bill shook his head and grinned. “Well, Officer, you’ve come to the right man,” he said, ignoring the question outright. “My fees are very straightforward. May we take a moment just to discuss-“

Dipper had heard enough. While Bill was still talking, he stepped around the officer and past the barricade, slowly making his way up the street. Behind him, he heard Mabel call a warning to be careful, and Stan mumbled something that sounded like a good luck. Dipper didn’t want them to see Bill’s nonchalant expression, so he sent them both a wave over his shoulder and hoped that that would be enough.

Every step he took, he could feel the vortex getting stronger. Objects rushed by him as though being dragged by a river’s current, and every once in a while the extra force made him stumble as he walked up the street. He did not fall, though, and carefully made his way towards the source of the problem.

He was still more than a block away when the vortex finally came into view. It had grown enough that it nearly filled the street, and a thick, black cloud of debris circled it like a tornado. Lightning flashed every second, and once in a while a massive strike created a flash up and down the street. Even from where he stood, Dipper could see that it had started to pull apart the surrounding buildings. He felt his knees tremble slightly, but he continued walking several more feet.

“Stop,” Bill said finally. “This is close enough.”

Dipper did so and stood straight, hoping that his strong posture would make up for the weakness in his legs. He pulled out his pen and paper from his jacket pocket and scrawled his message.

_What do I need to do?_

Bill read it quickly. “Just stand here,” he said in a moment. “I can take care of the actual ritual. Just make sure that nothing hits us in the head, okay?”

Dipper froze. That was not what he had had in mind at all. _What, are you going to be the hero of Gravity Falls now?_

Bill growled, and again it spooked Dipper to hear himself make that noise. “Are you serious? Do you really want to have an argument about it here and now? I know the words better than you, I actually know what we’re dealing with here, and _you don’t have a voice right now_. I mean, if you really want to write down the whole thing and call it a day, I certainly won’t stop you, but I’m not going to have a discussion about it."

Dipper’s straight posture slacked a bit. Of course Bill was right, but it felt so wrong letting a terrible demon save the town. Still, he did as he was told and let Bill start reciting the words.

“Ianuam claudet,” Bill started, closing Dipper’s left eye while leaving the right one open. Although he had been able to see fine before, Dipper found his vision suddenly go blurry, which was not helped by the sunglasses. “Ego… clausitque mundi!”

Dipper felt the warmth building in his body again. Bill was chanting the same words over and over, but Dipper’s mind wasn’t caught in the same loop. He had time to focus on the ways his body reacted as the magic of the ritual flowed through him. His body felt like it was heating again, from the inside out, but it didn’t burn him like it had before. Instead, he felt powerful. Unlike his own attempt at magic, which had worn him down, Bill’s was energizing him.

Even if he couldn’t see very clearly, he knew exactly what was happening when the vortex started to shrink in size. At the same time, Bill stopped chanting, and the heat in his body started to lessen. As the vortex shrank, the tug weakened, until Dipper could no longer feel it on himself at all. The swirling cloud of debris fell away, not into the vortex, but onto the street, as floating objects are supposed to. Still the portal shrank, and the last Dipper saw of it was a single, pathetic spark of electricity before it vanished into nothing.

Dipper was ready to celebrate and went to get them back to Stand and Mabel, but Bill stilled him with a word.

“Stop." he said, "I'm not done yet. The portal is gone, but I need to make sure it’s locked.” So he started once again, and the warmth built back up in Dipper’s body. “Ostium fractum. Divisiones dispersi sunt.” Nothing visible happened in front of Dipper, and the second half of the ritual turned out to be much more boring than the first.

Finally, Bill finished that without much fanfare. He looked around at the scene: debris lay in the street, and the walls of a couple buildings had started to crumble. Still, there was no hole in the street anymore, and that was a definite improvement.

Dipper pulled out his pad of paper. _Are you done now?_

“Yes, Pine Tree,” Bill said. “It’s done.”

 

* * *

 

That night, there was a celebration. Not a large one, of course. Because Dipper had made downtown habitable again, people were expected to be at work in the morning, and whether out of spite or need for sleep, most of the town didn’t show up. Still, Dipper’s friends all came by, and that was good enough for him.

Soos and Wendy came, of course, along with a couple of Wendy’s friends. Candy and Grenda showed up and briefly congratulated him before Mabel whisked them away to the bedroom. Several other townsfolk arrived as well, including Old Man Mcgucket, who spent most of the evening stealing snacks and stuffing them into his hat.

Throughout the party, Dipper was very careful about who he let Bill speak to, and for how long. Nobody questioned the sunglasses, because the defender of the town was really allowed to wear whatever he wanted, but they did start to raise eyebrows when Bill had said too much.

“But you know, none of it would have been possible if I didn’t have such a great need to prove myself to everybody. It is my unique combination of low self-esteem and sense of superiority that made me the man I am today. And now, it seems, I am going to get more water,” he finished as Dipper walked them back to the kitchen. Wendy was standing there, alone with a red cup. She waved as Dipper entered.

“Hey, dude,” she said. “How’s it hanging?”

“Limply, with its tongue lolling out of its mouth.”

Wendy’s smile shrunk a bit. “Right, I almost forgot you were riding co-pilot. Is Dipper around?”

He quickly pulled out his pad of paper, the top sheet of which already have an explanation prepared.

She nodded. “Got it. So, is this going to be a regular thing with you two?”

_I hope not._

“Yes, definitely.”

Wendy chuckled a bit at the inconsistency. Even knowing that there were two beings trying to communicate within Dipper’s body, it was still odd to see the teen contradicting himself so perfectly. “Hey, you’ll make it work. If there’s one thing I know about you, Dipper, it’s that you can beat anything this weird town throws at you.”

Dipper rubbed his arm, grateful for the compliment. His face heated up, and he felt Bill scrunch their eyebrows in confusion.

“Uh, everything okay?” Wendy asked, and Dipper suddenly realized that the whole combined expression must have looked ridiculous. Embarrassment made his blush even worse, and he decided that he needed to be very far away all of a sudden.

“Pine Tree’s body is behaving erratically,” Bill said as Dipper started to shuffle out. “We’ll need a minute just to get things straightened out.”

“Well, okay,” Wendy said. “Take care, guys.”

Dipper fled. He ran into the gift shop, and then climbed the secret ladder up to the roof. He knew that Bill had seen the spot on the roof before, had probably known about it a long time before Dipper, but he still felt like he was introducing the demon to something important. It was a pleasant feeling, even if short lived.

“I can’t tell you how many times I have tried to push you off of this ledge,” Bill said. “Of course, I was incorporeal at the time, so it was impossible, but it was still plenty of fun to pretend. Get rid of my number one problem, just like that.”

Suddenly, being the one in charge of the legs didn’t seem that bad to Dipper. He sat down on the lawn chair and pulled out the notepad. He had a question in mind that he wanted to ask, but at the same time, he was pretty scared to know the answer. In the end, curiosity won out, as it usually did, and he wrote it down while Bill watched.

_Why haven’t you tried to kill me yet?_

Bill read the note, and then laughed. It was a great, shrieking laugh that woke up the forest and scared a flock of crows that had been sitting in a nearby tree. Dipper jumped, his heart still racing as Bill said, “What are you talking about? Of course I have.”

Dipper didn’t know how to respond to that. He held the pen in his hand, poised to write, but he couldn’t think of the words he needed to express all that was going on in his head. In the end, he settled for the best way to convey his emotions that he could think of.

_?_

“After our deal,” Bill said. “I panicked when I realized what happened. You caught me by surprise, Pine Tree, you really did, and the only way to deal with surprises is to eradicate the person who caused them. So, I did the best with what I had and forced your lungs to stop breathing. I didn’t think about the fact that we would both pass out at the same time, so once we were out, you started breathing again.” A bubble of laughter burst from Dipper’s mouth again, though Bill tried to hold it down. “Your body’s safety mechanisms actually helped me quite a bit. It would have been a real pain if I had ended your life!”

Dipper supposed that people had said worse things to him in the past. Still, curiosity pushed him to go deeper. After all, when else would he have a chance to speak to a demon so directly?

_What do you mean it’d be a pain?_

“If you had died, I would have had to wait until you completely decayed before I could get out of this thing. That spell you did is good for as long as you’ve got a body to be held in. It’s much faster for us to figure out how to get me out of here than for me to do the work myself, although if you start to dawdle, I might be willing for some more drastic action.”

Bill’s tone was still light and easy, but Dipper was very aware of the thinly concealed threat behind his words. Dipper needed to find the solution soon.

_We need to find the spell, then. Where do we look?_

“Everywhere,” Bill said, and Dipper’s heart dropped. “No, Pine Tree, I’m kidding. We just need to figure out who created your spell and then search through his work until we find what we need. It’ll be easy, like that time you tried to find the author of the journals.”

He knew at that point that Bill was messing with him somehow. He had completely failed at finding the author, and the demon knew that very well. Heck, he had probably watched Dipper’s final moments of frustration, during which he ended up breaking the laptop a second time. Old Man Mcgucket had offered to fix it again, but Dipper had refused. He hadn’t picked up the search since, and he didn’t plan to ever again. The author, whoever they were, definitely did not want to be found.

Despite that failure, he knew that this search would be different. His search for the author had been fun and exciting, but at the heart of it he never had been worried much about the final outcome. This time, though, the stakes were all too real. No matter how feasible Bill’s plan actually was, Dipper was going to have to play along if he wanted to protect his own life.

“If you want to get a head start, we can start work tonight,” Bill offered, to which Dipper wrote one word in response:

_Sleep._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very happy to have Chapter 2 done, and excited to be moving onto Chapter 3. I was actually really excited to write about Dipper and Bill learning how to live in one body, but in case you weren't so into the mundane, things will really be picking up next chapter.
> 
> My goal is to post every Friday, so hopefully the new chapter will be up in a week.
> 
> Thank you again for reading!
> 
> EDIT 7/29: I'm traveling this week, and just learned that I will not have internet access on Friday. I'll do my best to post the next chapter on Saturday, and things should return to normal next week. Sorry about that!


	3. The Hero, The Wizard, And The Hero's Medic

Dipper was dreaming, and by this point he was getting used to the fact that he was always going to be aware of it from now on. He was in the same place his dreams were starting lately: falling into the bottomless pit with no opening above him and a tiny speck of light far below.

He knew that he had made an agreement with Bill to let the demon control his dreamscape as he pleased, but he decided not to call him right away. He just needed a moment to appreciate having some space to himself. The past two days had been exhausting, and it was not just because of all of the crazy magic he had partaken in. Actually, it was constantly having company that drained him the most.

Before Bill had arrived in his head, Dipper had really taken for granted the idea of being alone. While sometimes he had cursed his struggles in making friends or having a normal social life, he really had enjoyed the time he was able to put towards his own projects and ideas. Being alone in his room, while maybe depressing on some days, had overall been a welcome break from the normal trouble of school and everything that came along with that. He hadn’t really appreciated that, but there had never been a real need to. He certainly never thought about thanking himself for being alone.

So, having Bill with him constantly was draining, to say the least. Even when the demon was on his best behavior, he was still a person – probably the wrong word for that – who demanded attention from Dipper, and there was no excuse Dipper could make to get himself away. When Bill wanted something, there was nowhere for Dipper to run to. He was almost starting to feel claustrophobic in his own skin, not that he would let Bill know about that. Dipper physically could not imagine the types of dreams Bill would create with that kind of fuel.

He didn’t call Bill immediately, then, and instead let himself fall for several moments, staring at the dot which did not seem to grow any bigger this time down. He didn’t have the energy to even reflect on the days’ events. When he finally cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted into the void, though, he didn’t feel that he had wasted his single minute of solitude.

With smoke and a _bang_ , Bill popped into existence. He straightened his bow tie, then grabbed his cane as he took a look around the void, as though there were many new, interesting details for him to observe. Dipper wasn’t sure whether or not the demon knew that he had waited before calling him, but Bill didn’t seem one for a silent treatment. Then again, who could ever be sure with a dream demon?

Eventually, the single, yellow eye came to rest on Dipper, and it scrunched into the closest a mouthless being could come to a grin.

“Pine Tree,” he said. “So glad to have been invited along again. Ready for another spectacular night?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Dipper said. “Are you putting me through another set of challenges?”

“Pfft, you really think I’m that unoriginal, to reuse my own material?” Bill asked, floating closer and leaning forward on his cane, despite the fact that there was no solid ground for the stick to actually lean on. “Pine Tree, I am a master of the mindscape. I have access to knowledge of all of your universe, beyond ideas that humans could even begin to fathom. I create new dreams like humans fart.”

“You know, I was almost starting to respect your authority as an all-powerful demon before you said that.”

“What, too personal?” Bill asked, his relaxed eyelid showing that he truly didn’t care one way or the other. It didn’t surprise Dipper, anyway. Bill considered himself powerful enough that respect from a human was hardly worth anything to him. Even if he was stuck in a human body, their relation to one another hadn’t changed at all in his eyes, er, eye.

As if to demonstrate this lack of caring, he popped away before Dipper could actually answer the question, and in a moment the boy found himself on top of a mountain. The sky was cloudy and gray, so he couldn’t tell where the sun was. A line of peaks stretched out far ahead of him, and he was certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that his position along the chain was the lowest.

For his dream that night, Bill had devised some sort of quest. The ultimate goal of said quest was entirely unclear, though, because he kept getting distracted by sidequests, each of which had multiple parts and offered rewards that were necessary for completing the main quest. Every time Dipper would think he had made progress, a new wall would appear in front of him, or an enemy would emerge that was only weak to a rare flower owned by a local farmer. That farmer, it would turn out, would have a problem with wolves eating his livestock, and Dipper would set out to take care of the problem. The wolves were always several levels above him, and he always just managed to get away before he was killed, but in the end he got the flower, killed the beast, and moved on to the next obstacle.

After what felt like months of such work, he came to the final boss, which he knew was the final boss because a sign hanging outside the lair stated such. It also mentioned that the recommended level was 29. Dipper was at 21, but he was so tired of grinding that he pushed through the doors anyway.

Bill was floating inside, watching the boy as he entered. Dipper, ready for another fight, cocked and aimed his bow. He jumped when, instead of attacking, a pile of confetti landed on top of him.

“You did it!” Bill cheered. “You passed through every obstacle and defeated my game.”

“Wha-“ Dipper started to say, then stopped, aware that any wrong movement could trigger a trap in the closed-in arena. “But what about the boss battle?”

“Boss battle?” Bill asked. “Oh, you mean that dragon you were supposed to take care of? Never mind him. I figured, you worked so hard to get here, I might as well take care of the hardest part for you.”

“But I got so prepared!” Dipper cried. “I crafted new equipment every ten feet just to make sure I had the best stuff, and I leveled up my bow skill, because the priest in the first town told me it was too dangerous to fight a dragon in close quarters. Do you have any idea how hard it is to fight regular enemies with just a bow?”

“Wasn’t that the real fun, though?” Bill asked, his excited mood not shifting in the slightest. “Fighting the normal, everyday monsters was such a challenge, I’m sure you had a good time.”

“No, I didn’t,” Dipper insisted. “Fighting the regular monsters was so boring. I only did it because I knew that I would have to prepare for the final boss, but apparently all of that work was for nothing. I even gathered all four stones of the elements just so that my arrows could get some sort of holy aura. I don’t even know what it does!”

“If you’re sure that the adventure didn’t end the way you wanted it to, I could let you start again,” Bill offered. “You could go all the way back to the beginning and make different choices the next time through. Of course, you would have to go back to level 1, but you were able to get up this high in no time at all, right?”

“No!” Dipper yelled, loud enough that the world around them shattered and flung them both into consciousness.

 

* * *

 

Dipper jumped awake, aware of a strange feeling of disappointment but unable to describe exactly what for.

“Morning, Pine Tree,” Bill said while they stared up at the ceiling. “Sleep well?”

“No,” Dipper said. “What did you even do last night? I feel like I hiked up a mountain.”

Bill shrugged his right shoulder. There was slight tingle in his left shoulder, but the body part stayed still until Dipper himself wiggled it a bit. Upon trying his right shoulder, he found that it was unavailable to him.

“You know, I really was hoping to have a day when I could actually use my own body,” he sighed, pushing himself onto his left arm while Bill pushed with the right. They managed to sit up together enough that they could finally look around the room. Not much had changed from the night before, except Mabel had finally crashed into her bed at some ridiculous hour. For a moment, Dipper was surprised that Candy and Grenda hadn’t slept over, but then reasoned that it was definitely for the best, given that they already had one houseguest. He wondered if she had told her friends about it. How important was it to keep this thing a secret, anyway? The people of Gravity Falls had been well aware of the weird stuff ever since they had taken down the Society of the Blind Eye. The townsfolk would probably be able to stomach the idea of a dream demon.

Then again, there was no telling how people would react if they learned that their very own hero of Gravity Falls was susceptible to demonic possession, and he decided that it was best to keep the matter private for the time being.

Focusing back on the present, he started to test out his different parts. He could use his whole left arm, and likewise didn’t have any use of the right at all. He could move both sides of his face, but the right side was slower. Although it wasn’t numb, he was certain that feeling on that side was duller, and the vision in his right eye was definitely foggier. Just as he thought it had been a clean split down the middle, he found that his right leg was the one he could move.

“Well, this is going to be confusing,” he said while Bill kicked away the sheets with the left leg. “I mean, really confusing. Is this even going to be possible to manage?”

“Of course it’s possible,” Bill said. “Certainly not pain-free, but possible. We’ll fall everywhere, if that’s what we have to do.” Clearly, the demon saw no reason to oppose this idea in the slightest.

Dipper glanced at the stairs leading down to the rest of the house. “I think we can figure out some other way to get around,” he said. “It’ll just take some practice.”

That turned out to be an understatement. Just getting out of bed turned out to be a great balancing act, each foot shifting around to try to keep the body upright. Twice, they tried to move in the same direction and they ended up landing back on the bed where they had started. Eventually, they were able to work together so that Bill kept the left leg still while Dipper maneuvered his right leg to keep balanced, but they were both fully aware that this solution was useless if they actually wanted to go anywhere.

At some point, the shuffling and falling and cursing was enough to wake Mabel up, and she blinked slowly at her brother as she took in his furious attempts to stand up. Their eyes met, and guilt washed over Dipper. He couldn’t be sure how the whole scene looked to her right then, but he knew that watching one’s brother unable to get himself out of bed was probably a really bad way to wake up.

“Uh, hi Mabel,” he said once they were relatively steady.

“Hey Dips,” she replied, still not quite awake. She pulled away her blanket and sat up, pulling her arms up into a stretch. Dipper watched the movements with a small hint of envy. “Having trouble with Bill again?”

“Human legs were made for one user,” Bill said. “Pine Tree really should have upgraded his old system before adding another.”

Mabel chuckled, although Dipper wasn’t even sure that she had heard. She stood up and walked to her closet, and yeah, Dipper was definitely feeling envious now. She pulled out her outfit and then walked out of the room, most likely to go to the bathroom. Although they hadn’t discussed it openly, they had come to a silent agreement that Bill had no business watching Mabel get changed, so she had been getting dressed in the bathroom.

Once she was out of the room, it was back to business for Dipper and Bill.

“Okay. How about I take a step, get balanced, and then you go after me, right?” Dipper asked.

“However you’d like to do it is fine,” Bill said. “As the resident human, I’m sure you’re the expert on walking, after all.”

“Right.” Dipper looked down at his right leg, stiff from the effort of keeping them upright. He just had to pick it up and move it in front of them a little bit. Heck, he could just slide it across the floor. Baby steps, right?

God, pun unintended.

Still, no matter how simple it seemed in his brain, his leg refused to listen. He knew that he was going to fall over. No matter how much he thought about it in advance, or how carefully they timed their movements, Dipper was guaranteed to meet the floor at least this first time, and likely more after. Knowing his fate was making it impossible for him to convince his leg to move, and it stayed right where he had placed it, like a tree growing out of the floorboards.

“This is ridiculous,” Bill said, and he lifted the left leg and swung it forward. Dipper really had been getting ready to make a move, and his right leg was slack. Therefore, as soon as Bill took off, neither leg was really holding up their body, and they immediately fell to the left, crashing rather painfully onto Dipper’s left arm.

“Bill!” Dipper cried, wincing at the pain. It was nothing serious, luckily, but he knew for sure that the skin on his elbow was scratched and bleeding.

“You weren’t doing anything,” the demon said, taking stock of their sprawled body parts by flexing the muscles under his control. Seemingly satisfied with what he found, he relaxed all of them at once, forcing Dipper to fully lie down on the floor. “Pine Tree, you might have the rest of your short human lifespan to waste worrying about possibility, but I actually have things that I need to be doing. The faster we work this out and get ourselves together, the sooner I can get myself back on track.”

Dipper thought about that for a moment. “Who says I even want to help you get your life back on track?” he asked, still staring up at the ceiling. “In case you forgot, I still consider you a mortal enemy. Maybe it’s for the best that I hold onto you for a while, keep you from acting on any of your plans.” It was a bold thing to say, but in the moment it didn’t feel so bold. It was much easier for him to talk to his own voice than it was the floating triangle, and something about that seemed rather sad to him.

“If you actually value your existence,” Bill said, dropping down an octave, “you will assist me in returning to my natural form.”

Nerves rode up Dipper’s spine, and he found himself nodding. “Right. Yeah, okay.” He flipped himself onto his stomach and then, with some help from Bill, pushed himself up so that he was sitting on his knees. “Standing. Right. We can do this.”

Using his bed as an anchor, Dipper was slowly able to push himself upright once again so that he was standing on both legs equally. His left arm was sticking out, an automatic reaction to being off balance, but Bill let the right arm hang limply by his side.

“Are you willing to actually go ahead with it this time, or shall I?” Bill asked. They were staring straight ahead at the bedroom door, and Dipper wondered what he would do if Mabel walked in right then.

“No, I can do it,” Dipper said. “I am the resident human; I know how these things work.” Bill didn’t say anything, and Dipper decided that the silence was his cue to act. He was still scared, of course, but now at least he realized that there were much scarier alternatives to landing on his face. In one quick, sharp movement, he brought his foot up and slammed it back down a few inches in front of himself. They wobbled for a moment, Bill even reaching out to keep them balanced, but they didn’t fall over. That in itself seemed a true miracle. Still, there was no use in celebrating. Bill still hadn’t taken a step successfully.

It was weird, waiting for his body to move on its own. Dipper could feel the muscles in his left leg contracting, the tendons tightening as Bill judged how best to move the limb. Both arms were stretched out, both for balance and as defense in case they fell again, and Dipper was aware that his right arm, the one he had no control over, was the tighter of the two. Subconsciously, at least, Bill seemed to be wary of the danger.

Bill swung the left leg forward and brought it down so forcefully that they swayed on the spot. Dipper quickly shuffled his right leg forwards, pointing his toes out to get better balance, and Bill pushed their torso back in alignment with their center of gravity. For a moment, Dipper was certain they were going to fall. Then, again miraculously, they found their balance. They stood up straight, about six inches away from where they had started.

“We did it!” Dipper cheered, and at that moment Mabel returned to the room, wearing her signature sweater and a skirt. She took in her brother’s excited grin and tried to send one back, although something was clearly on her mind.

“Have you moved at all since I left?” she asked.

“I took two steps,” Dipper said, sensing the defensiveness rising in his voice. “It’s not actually as easy as it seems. Everything is kind of screwed up right now.”

“Do you need help with the stairs?” she offered, and Dipper could have cried with joy at the thought of it. Unfortunately, Bill got to their mouth first.

“No, Pine Tree and I will manage. We’ve gotten this far, might as well push ourselves all the way,” he said, and Dipper could feel a confident grin forming on his face. Of course, stairs had been one of his favorite parts of owning a body the last time, there was no way he would let Dipper pass up this opportunity.

Mabel, aware that it wasn’t her brother who had spoken, hesitated in the doorway for a moment. Dipper couldn’t blame her for being unsure how to interact with the demon. Most of the time he didn’t even know what to say around the guy. Then, she did something that surprised all three of them.

Mabel approached Dipper’s body and put her hands on her hips.

“Bill,” she said, “I know that you are both perfectly capable of walking by yourself, and I believe Dipper when he says that you’ve actually made some progress with whatever you’re doing right now. I want you to remember, though, that you’re stuck in that body until Dipper can find a way to get you out, and it’s going to take a lot longer if you hurt a single one of Dipper’s bones.”

Bill stared at Mabel, and Dipper almost feared for her safety. Then, the demon started to laugh. It wasn’t the same shrieking laugh that caught him when Dipper was in pain, although it was still uncomfortable to listen to. Instead, it actually sounded happy, as though that was an emotion a being like Bill could actually feel. Dipper wasn’t sure why he was laughing at that moment, but he could feel himself tearing up, and he worried that they might lose their balance. Gently, he reached up and patted his face, which got the demon to calm down marginally.

“Oh, Shooting Star,” he chuckled, wiping away a tear with his right hand. “I do love it when you humans try to stand up to me, as though you actually stand a chance against a being with the power to bend reality to my will. Have you ever seen an ant ram against your shoe because it knows that there is food somewhere, and it’s starting to act aggressive with you because it sees you as a worthy opponent. It stands up on four legs, waves its antennas at you, maybe clicks its jaw a few times. And the whole time you’re watching it, all you can think of is how you just have to move your foot a little to completely pulverize its body and wipe that ant from existence?

“That’s about the same feeling I just got to experience with you, right here. So thank you for letting me have that moment. In return, I will allow you to assist us in walking down the stairs.” With that, he fell silent, and Dipper felt control of their mouth return to him at last.

“He gets a little carried away,” he said, to which Mabel nodded.

“Yep. Makes sense, though. You ready to go down now, or should I wait for you?”

“Give me a minute,” Dipper said. “We’ve still got to get dressed. As soon as that’s done, we’ll head down with you.”

He and Bill took several more clomping steps to get to Dipper’s closet, where he was quickly able to pick out the same outfit he wore every day. Mabel was kind enough to turn away while they got dressed, so they did so right where they stood. It was easier to do that than take the energy to go anywhere else, at least.

As soon as they were dressed, Dipper called Mabel over, and the three worked together to get upright again. Once they were up, Dipper insisted that they were able to walk themselves to the stairs, but Mabel put an arm around their shoulders and kept it there. Dipper was grateful for the support, even if he didn’t want to admit it. Together, they made it to the top of the stairs, where Dipper looked down and nearly gulped. For whatever reason, the staircase seemed much steeper than it had the previous day.

“Are you going to be okay going down?” Mabel asked.

It was a question to which Dipper had no real answer. Bill had said that he would let Mabel help them, but the guy wasn’t exactly trustworthy. He could easily slip up halfway down, and then Dipper was doomed. Actually, either of them could make an actual mistake and the results wouldn’t be much better. Mabel was only human, too, and she could easily slip and pull Dipper down with her, and then they would all probably be worse off.

The list of worries stretched long and troublesome in Dipper’s mind, so that he forgot to answer the question and didn’t have time to react when Bill moved the right leg down onto the first step. Mabel took it as confirmation that her idea would work, and so stepped down alongside the leg, leaving Dipper’s left leg all alone at the top. Aware that the others were waiting for him, he followed suit, placing his foot one step lower than the previous. If they really were going to do this thing, it might as well have been done right.

Getting down the stairs was tricky, but having Mabel beside them really made a huge difference. Every time Bill swung out the right leg too far, she held them up while he shuffled back into place. And when Dipper hesitated for too long, she encouraged him to take the next step. Without her there, Dipper was certain that they would have just rolled straight down the stairs.

When they reached the bottom, Mabel released her brother slowly, letting him find his balance before she broke contact. Once he and Bill were steady on their feet, he looked up at her and smiled.

“Thanks,” he said. “I probably would have died without you, seriously.”

“Hey, somebody’s got to watch out for you this summer,” Mabel said. “As the older sister, it’s my duty to make sure you get home in one piece.”

Dipper couldn’t even get mad at the reference to their negligible age difference. He laughed as Mabel started walking to the kitchen. He made a move to follow her, and immediately found himself landing on his face again.

“Bill!” he shouted, more in surprise than anger. “What was that?”

“You startled me,” Bill said. “You need to give some warning before you take off like that. Maybe we should come up with some sort of signal. Would you like to try whistling every time you take a step?”

“No! No signals. You just need to pay better attention.” Wobbling quite a bit, they were able to stand up before Mabel got back to help them. Dipper tried to give his twin an apologetic look, but Bill started speaking again before the siblings could communicate.

“All I’m saying, Pine Tree, is that you seem to be taking more power than you’ve earned. We’ve got this thing split 50-50, so I think decisions should be made more democratically. Shooting Star, don’t you think it’s unfair for him to make all decisions by himself?”

“Don’t listen to him,” Dipper said, more out of annoyance than any real fear that Mabel would pay attention to the demon. “This was my body originally, I’m the one who decides how we use it.” He looked to Mabel expecting her agreement, and was surprised with how uncomfortable she looked.

“I mean,” she said, not looking at Dipper’s face but instead the walls around them, “you’re definitely not wrong about that, but I feel like maybe you guys should try to work as a team. I mean, yeah, Bill is kind of terrible, but you’re still in this thing together, and you’ve got to find some way to make it work. I’ve never been possessed, I guess, so I don’t really know what it’s like–“

“Yeah, you don’t know,” Dipper said. His voice came out rougher than he meant it to and he touched his neck, looking away from his twin. “I’d love for it to be that simple, but it’s not like that. We can’t just… it won’t work to…” He was struggling to find the words that would convey how impossible it was to actually get along with Bill, while at the same time not make it sound like he was the jerk in this situation. Clearly, the terrible demon that had taken over his body and tried to kill them the year before was the bad guy here. As the one who looked on the bright side of things, it made sense that Mabel would be a little more open to the guy, but that didn’t mean that Dipper was just going to let it slide. Bill sucked, and he needed her to understand that much.

“Well!” Bill said, after a minute had stretched without speaking or eye contact. “I can see you two are well on your way to being permanently split up due to disagreements over the moral ramifications of a demonic half-possession. Much as I adore the idea of being the one reason neither of you ever speak to each other again, I am actually hungry. To the kitchen, Pine Tree!” With that, he took a sudden step and Dipper fell over, although this time he managed to catch himself before he landed on his face again.

“That’s never going to happen,” he said, straightening himself up yet again. He looked over at Mabel who nodded, determination in her eyes.

“Right!” she said. “No matter what happens, the Mystery Twins are sticking together!”

 

* * *

 

After breakfast, Dipper and Bill decided to head to the Gravity Falls Library. Although they both know perfectly well that they weren’t going to find their goal among those archives, it was as good a place to start the search as any. Neither of them were even sure what they were looking for at this point. Some name or mention to get them headed in the right direction, perhaps.

The Mystery Shack was finally back in business, meaning that Stan couldn’t drive them. Riding a bicycle was completely out of the question, so their only choice was to walk all the way to town. It was a daunting task, but Dipper refused Mabel’s offer of assistance. Much as he was grateful, he didn’t want her to see how many times he was going to fall down and hurt himself somehow. Even if he and Bill were improving at walking, they still stumbled every few steps, and sometimes those stumbles evolved into flopping onto the sidewalk, skinning a knee or elbow on the way down. It didn’t help matters that Bill giggled every time Dipper had to stop to pull tiny bits of gravel out of the scrapes.

When they finally arrived in town, Dipper knew that he looked like a mess. Although none of the scrapes bled profusely, they were still an angry red, the skin clearly demanding that he pay attention to and fix it. So, he took a small detour from the library, instead stopping by a store where he was able to get some bandages and disinfectant. He would have to go back and check on it later, but it worked fine for the time. Bill, on his part, let him dress his wounds in peace.

Stepping out of the bathroom, he heard excited whispers and turned to find a couple of townsfolk had noticed him. They watched him for a moment, then returned to their conversation, of which he heard brief snatches. He gathered that they were saying something about the lake, and he himself felt comfortable in assuming it was about the sea monster egg he had discovered the week before, back before everything went wrong.

“Gentlemen,” Bill said to the man and woman, taking a small step forward and forcing Dipper to walk with him. As though gloating over this small victory, he took several more, until he was standing right next to the people. “My large, pointless ears couldn’t help but overhear your conversation. May I ask you if something is amiss at the lake?”

The two looked at one another, something silent passing between them that Dipper couldn’t pick up on. The woman turned back to him, features laced with worry.

“You’re the monster hunter, right?” she asked. The question had to have been rhetorical, because she barreled on before Dipper could provide an answer. “Well, we heard that something bizarre is happening down at the lake, and we were wondering if you were on your way to take care of it.”

“What do you mean, bizarre?” Dipper asked. His interest had gone from 0 to 60 in a second, and he took over the mouth without even thinking about it properly.

The two glanced at each other again, and this time the man explained, “This morning, somebody noticed that a whirlpool had started up in the middle of the lake. It kept getting bigger and bigger, and it sucked away a lot of the lake water. The water got low, like, real low, but just when we thought it was going to vanish entirely, it started to fill back up again. Only, it doesn’t seem to be stopping. It’s started flooding over there, and nobody knows how to stop it.”

“It’s going to make a mess,” Bill muttered.

“Yeah,” Dipper said. Realizing that he was talking to himself, he had to hope that neither of them had noticed the brief exchange. He and Bill really needed to work on their communication skills. “So, you say a whirlpool appeared,” he said, trying to steer the conversation again. “Did you see anything similar to that vortex that appeared in the street?”

“Couldn't say, everything interesting happened underwater. But you closed the vortex, didn’t you?” the man asked, to quick to hide the note of panic in his voice. “Why would another one show up?”

“I’ve got to figure that out,” Dipper said. “Right now, though, I guess I’ve got to go fix the lake.” So, he and Bill left the store, passed the library and walked to the lake. They managed to walk to whole without with falling over once.

 

* * *

 

The couple really had failed to capture how bad the situation was. The lake was massive. The water level had risen so that it covered half of the shack, and angry waves threw themselves at the shore, likely with enough force to pull someone under. Debris floated through the water, turning the normally blue color into grey and brown, further endangering anyone who got caught in it. Way off in the distance, at the center of the lake, a massive whirlpool churned endlessly, dragging everything down into an unknown fate.

Dipper stood on the shore and became very aware that he had no idea how he was going to get from point A to point B.

A number of townsfolk stood around him, including the two police officers who clearly needed a day off sometime soon. Dipper looked to each of them, and they looked back, clearly thinking that he had some perfect solution written on the inside of his wrist.

“So,” he said, suddenly aware that they were waiting for him to speak. “Uh, that’s a whirlpool alright. And I bet it could possibly be connected to the hole from yesterday. Uh.” They were still watching him, clearly expecting an answer that he wasn’t prepared to give. “I guess I should get over there, somehow, and fix this.”

“Sounds good to me,” Sheriff Blubs said, clearly satisfied with a plan that didn’t require anything out of him. Dipper felt like he should take issue with a man who was totally comfortable sending a teenager into harm's way, but he was too busy thinking to dwell on it much.

“So, I need a boat,” he said, “to reach the vortex. And I need some way to get down to it once I’m over there, just in case it’s a long way down.

“I’ve got scuba gear in my truck,” Tate McGucket said, pointing his thumb over at a nondescript blue pickup truck parked safely out of the water’s reach. Well, safe for now. The water was still rising, and di not seem prepared to stop anytime soon.

“You carry scuba gear around with you?” Dipper asked.

Tate McGucket shrugged. “You never know.”

He helped Dipper find the right sizes for every piece and assisted him in getting into each one. Just before Dipper put on the mask, he glanced back at the man.

“So, wait, do I need to pay you for this, or something?” he asked, thinking of the few scrunched bills lying around his room that constituted his savings.

Tate McGucket shrugged again. “I’ll add your name to the ‘Need to Have a Talk Sometime’ list.”

“Right. Good. Thanks.” Dipper finished assembling the gear, giving himself a once-over. Wetsuit, flippers, oxygen, and a number of odds and ends that he assumed were necessary for his survival. He had had to take off the shades for the mask, but it shielded his face enough that, so long as he didn’t look anyone straight in the eye, he was safe.

The boat, on the other hand, was not going to happen. Never mind that all of the boats that had been docked had been injured in the churning waves, none of the adults present really wanted to take a boat out on the cruel waves. The people of Gravity Falls truly had some bizarre morals, Dipper thought as he stepped into the water. It was warmer than he had anticipated.

He waded out until it came up to his waist, both he and Bill working extra hard to ensure they didn’t fall over in the waves. Once he was far enough away that he didn’t think the people would notice his voice, he whispered to Bill, “How the heck are we going to do this?”

“Pine Tree, don’t tell me you don’t know how to swim,” Bill said, playing with the right hand in the water.

“Of course I do,” Dipper said, trying to keep the edge out of his voice. It wasn’t the right place to get in a fight with the demon, not with a crowd of people watching from the shore. “I just don’t know how to do it with only half of my limbs.”

“You make it sound like you’ll be all alone,” Bill said. “I’m going to be helping. Remember, my will to not drown is only a hair shorter than your own.”

“Still, I’m not sure about this,” Dipper said. “We can barely handle walking together. How is swimming going to be any different?”

“I don’t know,” Bill admitted. “But we can’t discuss it this time. Once we’re in the water, we can’t stop to strategize. So you’d better figure it out quickly if you don’t want to get sucked in.” With that, Bill put on the mouthpiece, relaxed the left leg, and let them crash into the water.

At first, Dipper was too shocked to move. His eyes were open, and he could see the dark world just beyond his goggles. However, it still took a moment to process what he was looking at. As his senses kicked, he started to wave around his left arm, trying to find some way to move them forward. He could feel Bill doing the same, although his movements were larger and more precise. Clearly, he had a much better handle on the situation, so Dipper watched as his right arm moved forward in a great arc, then pushed back, forcing the water to move them forward. Gradually, he started to copy Bill’s movements, trying his best to mimic the shape of the curve and the timing of the push. They were swimming. Of course, it wasn’t very fast or graceful, and they would have been dead already without the scuba gear, but they were moving in the water.

As they moved, they naturally started to kick their legs, allowing the flippers to propel them through the water with greater speed. They hung near the surface of the water, sometimes so close that a body part broke through to the air. The lake bottom moved further and further away from them, until it started to appear murky in the dirty water. Then, it vanished from sight, and Dipper realized that he was really in open water. He wanted to stick his head up to see how far they were from the shore, but decided that it would be better not to break Bill’s concentration.

In the water, a strange sensation came over Dipper. As he got used to the rhythm of moving one arm and one leg, a feeling of peace came over him. On land, he had constantly felt like he was fighting. Fighting Bill to control where they went, fighting gravity to keep himself off the ground, but here, there was no fight. He and Bill were gliding through the water easily, and if one of them made a miscalculation, it didn’t send them sprawling. He found himself enjoying keeping time with Bill, feeling every stroke glide past his fingers.

Bill noticed the change in current before Dipper did. The demon stopped swimming, then waited for Dipper to pause as well, trying to figure out what was amiss. For a second, Dipper panicked. Although Bill had said multiple times now that he wasn’t going to kill him, this still would have been the perfect place to do it. The oxygen would have to run out at some point, and it would be impossible for Dipper to swim to the surface with only half of his limbs.

Then, Bill pointed ahead of them, and some of Dipper’s anxiety went away. He was pointing out a glowing shape far ahead of them, around which water and debris swirled constantly. It occurred to Dipper then that they should have been getting electrocuted, but it seemed that whatever energy had been leaping out of the vortex didn’t work the way he knew lightning to.

So, they had sight of the vortex. Dipper started trying to think of the best way for them to get close when Bill started swimming again. The demon clearly had some plan in mind, but Dipper didn’t like being left out of the loop. As far as he knew, Bill was planning to swim straight at the thing, and that didn’t sit too well with him. So, he started to kick, reorienting his body so that they were pointed up. Bill paused in his efforts, surprised perhaps, and then worked with Dipper to push them back up to the surface. They had gotten deeper than they’d started, Dipper realized, although they were still pretty high up. In the murky water, it was impossible to say how far down the bottom was, but he had a feeling that it went much deeper than anybody realized.

They broke the surface, and Dipper immediately felt a dry wind on his face. While he marveled at how far out they had swum, Bill roughly pulled out the mouthpiece.

“What’s going on, Pine Tree?” he asked, an edge of annoyance backing his words.

“I need you to tell me what we’re going to do,” Dipper said. “I don’t want to get too close to that thing without knowing exactly what your plan is.”

“Swim up to it, say the words, go home,” Bill said. “We hardly need a plan. It’s pretty much the same as last time, except a little bit wetter.”

“Will it work with the mouthpiece in?” he asked. “Doesn’t the hole have to…” He paused, his voice caught on words that he only now realized sounded terribly dumb. He didn’t bother hoping that Bill wouldn’t pick up on it.

“The hole has to what, Pine Tree?” Bill asked, his movement relaxing a bit. Good to know that Dipper could distract Bill by embarrassing himself, at least.

“Doesn’t it…” he mumbled, “doesn’t it have to hear the words? Now I know it sounds stupid, but hear me out!” He was scrambling to hold onto the mouth before Bill could jump in. He could feel laughter bubbling up in his chest, but so long as he kept talking, Bill wouldn’t be able to jump in. “Like, the ritual has to be all about the words, right? I mean, Gideon and I were both able to use demonic rituals, and you gave me the words for this one, so you don’t have to have any special powers to make the things work.” The urge to laugh was dying, Bill clearly becoming bored by the explanation. “So, I guess, it has to be the words, since there’s nothing else, and somehow the words have to reach the thing to tell it what to do. So I guess, maybe it kind of has to hear them in some way?”

A small chuckle escaped his lips, but nothing more. “Hm,” Bill said. “I mean, you’re wrong, but your logic isn’t bad for a human. In short, the mouthpiece won’t get in the way of the ritual, so you don’t have to worry our pretty little head about that. Let me do the job now, and I’ll fill you in on the hows and whys later.”

Dipper should have said no, but in the moment he was so glad to not have been humiliated that he was ready to agree to anything. “Sure, let’s do it,” he said. Bill gave a thumbs up, then promptly put the mouthpiece back in and dove back down, Dipper quick to match his movements.

They had gotten somewhat turned around when they surfaced, so they took a moment to locate the shining light before they started after it. They swam in a straight line aimed right at the vortex, only occasionally moving aside to dodge objects floating in the water. As they neared, Dipper noticed the water around them getting warmer. As first, he assumed it had something to do with the vortex and didn’t think much of it. As the water around them continued to heat, however, he started to think back to the hole that had opened in the street. No matter how close he had been or how large it had gotten, he had never noticed any great increase in temperature when he was near it. Something about this was clearly different.

He paused his stroke to try to communicate as much to Bill when something caught his eye. Below the vortex, illuminated by the bright light, something had moved. Fear shot through his chest as he thought of all of the terrible things that could have been in the water. Could McGucket’s sea monster have come back to life? Did the island head have underwater cousins? Bill stopped swimming as Dipper’s heart rate shot upwards at the sight of another movement. There was definitely something beneath the vortex, something massive.

Dipper couldn’t even move, and instead watched as the bottom of the lake shifted, and then split apart. Great rocks shoved against each other, pushed each other out of their original placement. Billows of dirt and sand shot upwards, forming a ceiling over whatever was happening beneath the vortex. He could feel his right arm thrashing, trying to pull him away, but he had to keep watching. He had to know what was going on.

The dust settled slowly, and Dipper found himself staring down into an eye the size of a house. Like an animal’s eye, the orange iris took up most of the space, leaving a small ring of white around the edge. The pupil was clearly defined against the bright backdrop, black with a silvery reflection in the light of the vortex. As Dipper watched, a collection of bubbles started to appear at the corners of the eyes before groups the size of a car broke off and shot up towards the surface. As they rose, the groups spread out, forming shapes like upside-down chocolate chips. One spread enough that the edge of it started to come very near to where Dipper hung in the water, watching it all unfold.

At that moment, Bill reached up and grabbed the mouthpiece, lightly tugging to pull it out of their mouth.

Dipper reacted with panic, grabbing it with his left hand and kicking furiously in an attempt to distract Bill. Of course the demon had been planning to kill him, why else would he have put up with this for so long? He had gotten Dipper himself to swim this far down, then waited until his attention was focused on something else to surprise him. Panic, no, fear, gripped him as he looked up to the surface. Even if Bill let go, there was no way he could get back up with one arm and one leg. He was going to die in the lake, without even the decency of a moment alone to grieve.

The group of bubbles floated several feet away, and he was struck by how warm the water became as they passed. His gaze still facing up towards the surface, he watched as they hit the air and disappeared. A moment later, Bill released his hold on the mouthpiece. He then started working to turn them back around so that they could face the eye again, which was still sending bubbles into the lake. He stared at them a moment longer before it hit him.

The creature, or whatever it was, was crying. Not only that, but based on the collection of bubbles and the heat of the water, Dipper had to assume its tears were boiling water, definitely not safe for him to be swimming in. Bill had tried to warn him ahead of time, but since that hadn’t worked, the demon had gone for more extreme measures. While they would have to have their long-overdo talk about communication later, Dipper couldn’t help but be grateful to Bill for saving him this once.

They started to swim down again, not directly at the eye but a little bit to the side of it, to avoid its transparent tears. Dipper had so many questions about what was going on right then, but the most important was how they were going to get closer to the vortex without being boiled alive. Dipper lost most control of his body while the ritual took place, during which a flesh-melting tear could easily reach them.

Still, they continued to swim down. After the demon saved his life not several minutes ago, Dipper was inclined to trust Bill’s plan, even if he had no idea what it was. The demon clearly wanted to get boiled alive as little as Dipper did, and having a guy like that on his side didn’t seem like such a bad deal. If Bill actually knew what to do about this, then it would just add to his small list of reasons why Bill Cipher wasn’t the absolute worst being in all of existence.

Finally, they reached the eyelid. Warm water spurted out to them from between the rocks, but it was nowhere near boiling. Bill grabbed onto one of the large rocks, and Dipper copied him so that they were firmly anchored to it. Bill waited a beat, then leaned forward so that their forehead touched the rock. Dipper saw a flash of white light, and then nothing.

 

* * *

 

The eye was dreaming, although the space Dipper found himself in was unlike any other dream he had been in before. He was standing on a bridge the shape of a cylinder of rock that stretched out infinitely in both directions. He was surrounded by the universe, but it appeared to be in black and white, missing the usual purples and reds that made galaxies such popular desktop wallpapers. He looked up one end of the bridge, then the other. He could see nothing but the stars surrounding him.

“Bill?” he yelled into the void, his voice somehow managing to fill and infinite space.

“Right here,” his voice said, making him jump at the sound. “How is that still a shock to you?”

“It’s not,” Dipper said, defensiveness rising up before his will to make a reasonable, sound argument. “I mean, in dreams, we’re usually separate, so that’s kind of what I was expecting to happen here. Clearly, though, this isn’t anything like my dreams.”

“Gold star,” Bill said. “A lot of the rules are different in here, but the one that matters most to you is that we’ve still got to do this together while we’re in here. So let’s try to get this done fast so that we can get back to the real problem.”

“Sure,” Dipper said. “Remind me what we’re going to do, exactly?”

“We’re going to give this thing a reason to keep its eye shut until we’re done,” Bill said. “It’ll be easy, too. Just have to find its dream, then play with it a little bit before we shove off.”

“How do you know its dreaming?” Dipper asked. “It looked pretty awake out there.”

“Everything is constantly dreaming,” Bill said. “They’re most powerful and easy to manipulate when you’re sleeping of course, but we haven’t got that luxury right now.”

“Huh,” Dipper said. He looked around them again, this time at the black and white galaxies hanging far above his head. “So how do we find this thing?”

“We have to jump down.” Bill averted their gaze to some distance below them, which, to Dipper, looked exactly like the space above. Knowing full well that literally jumping would just lead to trouble, he took a step forward, Bill took another, and then Dipper stepped off the bridge and into nothingness.

They didn’t fall for long at all, landing on a neat patch of grass just a moment after Bill’s leg left the bridge. There were still stars far above them, but now they were surrounded by massive trees at their side. They stood as tall as skyscrapers, and had leaves that fanned down so low they nearly touched the ground. Dipper reached out to touch one, but Bill stepped away, pulling the left arm with him.

“Bill?” Dipper asked. He looked up at the stars as though the demon was watching him from the sky.

“We have to be careful how much of this place we disturb,” Bill said. “Since I’m still stuck in your physical body, we’re more like observers to this dream than participants. I have a few strings I can pull here and there, but it will be easy to kick us out if that eye realizes that we’re here. So, leave the tampering for me, yeah?”

“Yeah, okay,” Dipper said, pulling his hand away from the leaf. “That’s fine, I don’t really want to go messing with a giant eyeball’s dreams anyway.”

They walked, then, through the overgrown forest, careful not to disturb anything on their way. Bill grumbled about Dipper’s inability to float, but otherwise kept quiet, focused on finding their target.

They came upon the eye suddenly, breaking through a wall of trees to find themselves facing its rocky back. Although its form obscured most of their view, they could see that it was sitting in a grassy clearing, staring up at the sky.

Again, Dipper didn’t know what Bill was planning. The demon seemed to be lost in thought, keeping them still for the moment. Dipper was fine waiting at first, but too much time staring at the rock started to make him antsy. Simply curious, he leaned down on his right leg to peer around the eye while he left hand pressed against the rocks for balance.

The scene in front of him was startling. The grass stretched forward for miles in front of them, occasionally interrupted by hills and creeks. Far away at a distance Dipper couldn’t measure, mountains broke through the horizon, merely black silhouettes obstructing the starry sky. Large lizards walked across the grassy plains, creatures that appeared in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. Dipper had never seen anything like them on Earth, although they didn’t quite seem alien to him for some reason.

Dipper turned to look at the eye, as though the giant object could give him the answers to all of the questions burrowing in his mind. The rocky eyelids blinked slowly, moistening its surfacing with boiling water, but luckily not spilling any. As the lids moved, they pushed their rocky surfaces against one another, shooting out bits of gravel and spreading dust into the air. It looked at the stars once more, and then in one smooth motion pointed its pupil right at Dipper.

His right arm twitched.

A mean wind picked up, raking across the plains and slapping against Dipper and the eye. The lizards scattered from view as heavy clouds rolled into the sky. Thunder rumbled throughout the dream, making Dipper jump and fall against the rocky body, the owner of which had averted its attention back to the sky to stare at the swirling clouds.

Dipper heard the rain before he felt it, large, heavy drops that created a percussion line on the grass. His was soaked in an instant, his clothing absorbing all of the drops and not letting a single one go. At first, the liquid made his skin itch. Then, it stung. And just like that, it burned him, turning his skin a hot, angry red. He yelled in pain and fear in equal measure, but Bill seemed deaf both to his cries and the pain their body was experiencing.

Desperate to protect himself, Dipper turned away from the eye to get to shelter. Bill failed to notice his flight, though, and let the left leg remained rooted next to the eye. Dipper landed on his face, hardly noticing the pain as he started to crawl towards the giant leaves. The rain continued to fall.

The world around Dipper was changing. The trees were growing taller, and the ground seemed to be growing smoother, making it nearly impossible for him to get a grip in it. The eye seemed to be vibrating fiercely, sending shockwaves through the ground and making Dipper worry that it might just roll over and crush him and be done with it.

Clawing and kicking, he continued to drag himself forward. He didn’t care about Bill’s plan anymore, only that he protect his body from further harm. Behind him, the eye started emanating a terrible screech, and fat drops of boiling water splattered onto the ground around it. Dipper ignored it. He had to focus all of his energy just on getting under cover, away from the horrible burning rain.

Just as he reached the tree line, he started to wake up. Unlike previous dreams with Bill, where a clean line had been drawn between dreams and reality, this was more of a slow shift. He became aware of the water first, then his scuba gear, and piece by piece he returned to the lake in Gravity Falls.

As it turned out, reality was worse. The eye was blinking rapidly, rocks crushing each other over and over, and heavy foam was bubbling at the corners and spilling out into the open water. Dipper pushed himself away to avoid getting smashed and watched as streams of bubbles rocketed to the surface. Then, releasing one final burst of boiling water, the eye snapped shut and fell completely still.

An uncertain peace settled into the water, disturbed only by the glow of the vortex still spinning above him. Dipper allowed himself to float for a moment as he waited for the lake water to cool. It would be terrible if they had gone to all that trouble, only to be cooked alive because they’d moved too fast.

Still, they had to get going if they wanted to close the hole before it drained the lake. Bill wasn’t making any move towards that end, and it occurred to Dipper that his right arm was floating rather limply. He wondered if the demon had overexerted himself. Dipper didn’t know a lot about demon powers, but it had to be difficult to use them when trapped in a physical body. He tried to come up with some way to ask Bill how he was doing, but couldn’t think of a good way to go about it. Still underwater, it was too difficult to make the sharp movements normally necessary to get the demon’s attention.

He looked up again at the glowing vortex and imagined the consequences if they didn’t close it this time. It would drain the lake, suffocating Gravity Falls. As it did so, it would continue to grow, pulling up trees and taking apart the landscape. It would get bigger and bigger, until…

“Six miles wide,” Bill had said. Dipper would never let that happen.

With no alternative, he started to kick and paddle his way upwards. At first, very little happened. He persisted, though, and Bill finally seemed to notice his efforts, as he joined in with the right arm. His movements were very slow, and it made Dipper wonder how much stress the demon had put on himself to shut the eye. At least he wasn’t a dead weight, holding Dipper fast to the bottom of the lake. Still, every few feet, Dipper did have to reorient them due to the right arm’s weak strokes. Bit by bit, they climbed towards the vortex. The right arm didn’t stop moving until they could feel the current starting to pull them towards the hole. Dipper continued paddling, though slower, just to make sure they weren’t pulled away.

Bill started to recite the ritual. Although Dipper couldn’t hear the words, he could feel his mouth forming the correct shapes. The energy started to build up again, but it was weaker, even flickering a couple times. Bill stumbled over one phrase, and Dipper feared that the magic would go out entirely. The demon quickly corrected himself and finished the ritual, after which the uncontrollable chanting started. Dipper was forced to stop paddling by the power of the ritual, but it hardly mattered. The vortex was closing, and in a moment had vanished.

Bill’s limbs went limp and floated beside them in the dark water. Dipper waited, but the demon made no move to start the second half, the part of the ritual that locked the hole closed. If they didn’t do that, then all of their work would have been for nothing.

He figured that one attempt had to be better than nothing. So from the one time he read the ritual and the time Bill spoke it aloud, he recited the second half of the ritual. He stuttered over the first phrase and started over, not sure if he was saying the words right because of the mouthpiece. As he went, he felt sparks of occasional energy, but nothing near what Bill produced, even in this weakened state. Dipper pushed through it and even got through to the chanting at the end.

Like the first time, nothing visibly changed, which frustrated Dipper to no end. He had no clue if he had done it successfully, and was even tempted to try again, just to be safe. However, a wave of dizziness washed over him, and he decided that it would best be left for another day.

So, the only thing left to do was to get out of the water. His movements were still stronger than Bill’s, but noticeably weaker than they’d been a moment ago. He wondered if he had made a huge mistake in trying to finish the ritual. Even if he did make it to the surface, where would he go? It had taken them so long to swim out this far, it would take a miracle to get them back to shore.

He looked back up at the surface and thought he saw a large piece of driftwood floating above them. He reasoned that, if he did reach the surface, he could grab it and wait for someone to find him. The wood kept moving, though, and he came to realize that it was a boat. That made little sense, though. They had only managed to close the vortex a few moments ago. Whoever had taken that boat had likely done so with a giant whirlpool in sight, and for some reason had come out anyway.

Even as he watched, a figure jumped off the boat and landed in the water with a solid splash. It was difficult to distinguish their features from this distance, but he hardly needed to. His sight only confirmed for him that Mabel had come looking for him. She was still wearing her clothes from that morning, no scuba gear or even bathing suit to speak of. She had to resurface for air every few moments, but otherwise kept her sights on the water below. As soon as their eyes locked, she dove. Dipper tried to signal at her to wait at the boat, that he was fine, but his twin was determined. When they came within reach of each other, she grasped his left wrist and turned to go back up. He wriggled free and pointed to his right arm, which had stilled for the moment when Bill realized they were no longer moving. She took it without argument and they started to ascend. Dipper still had to do some of the work, but it was nice to have Mabel helping him along.

She gasped when they broke the surface, taking in a big lungful of air, and Dipper felt bad for keeping her down a moment longer than necessary. Mabel climbed onto the boat first, and then hauled Dipper in to sit across from her. He tugged off the mouthpiece and took a large gulp of fresh air, grateful for the change.

“Dipper!” Mabel cried, interrupting his moment of appreciation. “How could you jump into an insane lake without telling any of us first?”

“Me? You were the one who took a rowboat to a whirlpool,” Dipper retorted. “Do you know what would have happened if you had gotten sucked in?”

“Do you?” she asked, and that stopped him. He had come to assume that it was sort of like a black hole, and that anything that got sucked in would be torn apart. Really, though, he didn’t know anything about the vortexes.

“Bill?” he asked.

The demon blinked their eyes slowly, like one suddenly woken from a nap. He stared at Mabel for a moment before speaking.

“It’s a portal,” he said, mouthing each word carefully. “Something is stealing bits of you world and taking them to its own. I suppose a couple of bits fell out the other way.”

“Wait, seriously?” Dipper asked, alarm shooting through him. “Is that where the eye came from? Should we be worried about this?”

Bill shrugged, letting the shoulder drop like it was too much effort to bother holding it up anymore. “Worry or not, it doesn’t make a difference. The most you can do is just keep closing them.”

“But if we do that, I might spend the rest of my life just closing portals,” Dipper argued. He wondered if an immortal being could understand the importance of time to a mortal, but decided to push that conversation to a much, much later date. “There has to be a better way to handle this. Some way that stops them permanently.”

“There is _not_ ,” Bill snapped, and Dipper saw Mabel jump. The demon noticed, too, and took a deep breath before continuing. Dipper noticed that their heart was pounding. “The portals don’t normally behave like this. This one grew quite a bit faster due to its unique conditions. Normally, it should take two or three days for one to become noticeable. So, you should have plenty of time in between to rest.”

Dipper still wasn’t convinced, but he didn’t feel like arguing with the exhausted demon. Bill himself had said that he didn’t know everything, so it was possible that there existed some way to prevent the portals from reappearing. Once they were separated, Dipper would just have to find it for himself.

He looked at Mabel, who had been waiting patiently for him to finish his conversation with himself.

“Thanks for coming out here,” he said. “It was super dangerous and probably could have been thought out better, but I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

“Aw, no problem, Bro-bro,” she said. “I wasn’t going to let you do this all by yourself. We’re the Mystery Twins. You protect Gravity Falls, and I protect you!”

“And I protect you, too,” Dipper added.

“Heh. Yeah,” Mabel said. She took up the paddles and started to row them back to shore. Dipper wanted to offer to help, but he knew that Bill simply wasn’t up to it. The demon was letting both of his limbs flop about freely, and it was taking a lot of effort for Dipper to keep them upright. He was also starting to feel a headache worming into his forehead, and he knew that their adventuring was done for the day. His instincts were leaning towards a nap, but sleeping with Bill nearby sounded absolutely exhausting. He would have to find some other way to busy himself for the rest of the day.

 

* * *

 

He and Mabel returned to the Mystery Shack, where Stan immediately roped them into working the gift shop. Dipper, at least, was allowed to sit behind the register while Mabel talked to the customers. He was grateful, because although Bill had managed the whole walk home, it was clear that the demon couldn’t manage another step. Despite being effectively immobilized, it was nice. For one thing, he didn’t have to worry about his mouth getting hijacked during a conversation, and that alone made a world of difference.

It was also nice that he didn’t have to wear the sunglasses while working. People assumed that the right eye was a contact lens, and they actually gave him tips when he told them the story of his demonic possession. In a weird way, it felt dishonest. However, he was getting paid, so he tried not to think too hard about it.

About an hour into work, there came a point when Stan was taking visitors on a tour and Mabel had run off to take care of something upstairs, and Dipper found himself alone in the gift shop. Of course, Dipper was never really alone.

“Pine Tree,” Bill said, the first movement the demon had made since they sat down. Dipper stayed very still, listening closely to his voice. “You surprised me today. I didn’t think that you would go through with the rest of the ritual.”

“You didn’t?” Dipper asked. “I mean, I didn’t really have a choice, did I? I couldn’t let the portal open up again and put Gravity Falls in danger. I just did what made the most sense.”

“Just because something makes sense doesn’t mean humans choose to go through with it,” Bill said. “Look at me. My job is to convince people that the things in their dreams are real. The more I can convince someone that the skin is really peeling off of their face, the better I’ve done. People often believe the things that make don't sense and ignore those that do, because your pesky instincts cloud your otherwise semi-decent logic.”

Dipper wasn’t sure whether or not he was being complimented, and he didn’t think Bill would mind if he didn’t thank him for the review. “We should probably go back tomorrow,” he said. “I’m not sure that I did it right, and we should check again before it has a chance to get too big.”

“No, you did it,” Bill said. “It’s not going to open again. It’s done.”

“Are you sure?” Dipper asked. “You didn’t seem very awake at the time.”

“I wasn’t,” Bill replied. “Still not quite. But I know that you closed the portal. You don’t have to worry about it again. Tomorrow, we focus on getting me out of here.” He paused, although not long enough for Dipper to jump in. “The speed of your research is doing little to soothe my impatience.”

Right. The constant threat looming over his head. Dipper had almost been able to forget about it for the afternoon, but it was back again. He wanted to get up right then and get to work, but he became aware that Bill had disappeared again, leaving his limp limbs in Dipper’s care. It seemed like a big waste of time, sitting there and manning the empty shop, but apparently that was how Bill wanted to spend their day. Really, Dipper couldn’t think of anything better.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's still Saturday in Oregon. I'm posting this on the day I said I would, and that's all that matters to me!
> 
> This chapter was a piece of work. The beginning turned out to be way longer than I planned, which is a big reason why it's nearly 4K words longer than the last two. Hopefully that makes up for my lateness a bit? I also wrote the last 3K words in a journal and had to type it on my computer, which made the whole thing take a lot longer than it normally does. Overall, it was just a hard chapter, so hopefully things will get back on track for next week.
> 
> PS  
> I was thinking about what sort of monster I wanted to put in the lake, and originally I was thinking something more Nessie-esque. Then, I started wondering what would happen if I put something in there totally not suited for this environment, and the first thing that came to mind was _giant fucking rock_. Thus, the eye came to be.


	4. Dipper's Hand Is on Fire and That's Okay

Dipper was certain that something had to be wrong. Worse, somehow, than the past three days put together. He had little evidence to support this claim, but that was what made him even more suspicious.

Nobody had come up to him demanding that he take care of a monster problem. No townsfolk stopped him on the street to mention a new crisis blooming on the other side of town. For the first time in far too long, Gravity Falls decided to take a break from its normal weirdness and let Dipper have a day all to himself.

He was getting antsy waiting for something to go wrong.

“Pine Tree, for our own good, I’m going to tell you to calm down right now,” Bill said while idly tapping a pencil. The noise had been creating a steady beat for several minutes now, because neither of them could focus due to Dipper’s fidgeting feet.

“I can’t,” he said. “I feel like I should be on alert right now. If you haven’t noticed, Gravity Falls has been on the brink of destruction twice in as many days. It feels like a really bad idea to be stuck in the library right now. Maybe I should check outside, just to be sure.”

He placed weight on his left foot, but Bill stilled the right leg before Dipper could get up onto both of them.

“No,” the demon said. “Saving the world can wait until after you’ve freed me from your mortal prison. We’re doing research right now.” He refocused their attention on the book that had been lying open in front of them.

That was another thing that was getting to Dipper. When they had woken up that morning, both of them were in complete control of the whole body again, like they had been the first day. They were finally able to take care of tasks as they wished, instead of being forced into constrictive roles. It was an act far too helpful to bid any good fortune. Something, Dipper knew, was going to go wrong.

Not that things were going exactly right, either. He and Bill had set themselves up in the library that morning to get started on real research. While both of them had known that they were not going to find anything about their specific situation, Dipper had been hopeful that they could find something in the town records about possible spellcrafters from the area. From what he had read, old spellcrafters had created a tight network stretched across the globe. Even if the one they were searching for had never been to Gravity Falls, it would be possible to track them down through someone else who had. Still, this was only the beginning of their search. Realistically, the spellcrafter they were after could have lived anywhere on Earth.

“This research business doesn’t make much sense while we’re still stuck in one little town in North America,” Bill had mentioned while flipping through an old newspaper. “The information we’re looking for is probably buried somewhere far away from here. This will all go much smoother once you start teleporting. For your sake, of course, let’s hope we’re not together long enough for that to start.”

Bill’s statement made Dipper pause his reading, eyes still stuck on the word ‘mountain’ but his brain failing to register it. “What do you mean, once I start teleporting?”

“Exactly what it sounds like,” Bill said nonchalantly. “How do you think I normally get around this planet? Earth might not be massive, but it’s a pain to have to get everywhere manually, and I’m not generally very patient. You should be grateful that I’ve even put up for you for this long, Pine Tree.”

“But, but…” Dipper’s mind was trapped in a loop that could only be broken by his own curiosity. “How is that even possible? I mean, it makes sense for you normally, because of the whole incorporeal thing, but I’ve got a physical body. Is that something I could actually do?”

“So long as you don’t get torn apart in the process, yes,” Bill said. “Really, the longer I’m in here, the more demonic traits this body will start to show. Something about a dominant soul taking over the vessel, blah blah blah, nothing really important. You’re going to get me out of here before anything interesting starts to happen, so it’s not something you need to worry about too much.”

Dipper was really trying to listen, but his mind was caught in a river of ideas and emotions. He rode on the curiosity and excitement of all the possibilities now laid out before him, but he could feel himself getting pulled down by doubt. Much as he liked the idea of zapping to wherever he wanted to be, he wasn’t sure what kind of toll it would take on his body. After their adventure in the eye’s dream, Dipper had taken it upon himself to look after his body and keep it safe from Bill’s rather reckless plans. Especially since Bill himself didn’t seem to understand the consequences, Dipper decided that they would need to do a lot more research before any teleporting could happen.

“That’s cool,” he said, most of his wonder washed away by worry. “Useful, I mean. We could definitely use that one day. For now, though, we should just keep doing this.”

Bill sighed as Dipper continued to flick through the paper, briefly letting their eyes train towards a soap ad. The demon was clearly bored of finding next to nothing. Although they had been able to write down a couple of name of interesting individuals, there was no definite proof that a spellcrafter had ever found their way into Gravity Falls. Maybe even magic users had a max capacity for weirdness.

Dipper dropped the paper after reading yet another article about a gnome kidnapping and reached for the next on their ever stocked pile.

That had been an hour ago, and by this point Dipper was ready to spring from his seat and run out the door, with or without control over both of his legs. He felt like he was wasting valuable time, but also could not think of anything better to be doing. If no one else had seen a portal yet that day, then it could possibly be a wild goose chase to go looking for one. Of course, if one was forming and he didn’t get there in time…

He threw his pencil up into the air. It spun in a graceful arc, then landed somewhere behind him, out of sight and reach. He tried to get out of his chair to retrieve it, but his legs were bound fast to the floor.

“You’re driving me crazy, and by extension yourself,” Bill said. “So, let’s just calm down and get back to work, alright?”

“Ugh, no, Bill,” he groaned. “You clearly don’t understand, but I have to be out there right now. I have to make sure everything is okay. If I wait until later, then something might happen, and I’ll be too late.”

“ _Nothing_ is going to happen, Pine Tree,” Bill said, an edge starting to creep into his voice. “If you keep that attitude, then you’ll never find a way to get me out of this body, and I’ll be forced to find a few new ways to use forks. And that would be really inconvenient for both of us, right?”

“It won’t be possible to keep looking if Gravity Falls is destroyed,” Dipper muttered. He was still scared of Bill’s threats, of course, but so far the demon had made no move to act on them, and Dipper was starting to wonder if the whole thing was a bluff. It _would_ be a pain for Bill to have to wait around in Dipper’s body after he died. Bill would have a much simpler time if he just let Dipper find the spell.

Even as these thoughts were racing through his head, Dipper felt the muscles in his legs contract. Suddenly, Bill lifted them from the chair, knees knocking painfully against the desk. Dipper had only a moment to grab his notebook before they started to walk towards the exit.

“Fine,” Bill said. “You want to see how your dear town is doing? We’ll go check on it, then, and you can see just how worthwhile your useless fidgeting is.”

They marched towards the exit door, Dipper barely able to give the librarian an unhappy smile before Bill pushed them into the sunlight.

As it turned out, the outside world was very bright and windy. A few puffy clouds dotted here and there, but they did nothing to block out the bright blue sky. Despite the sun shining directly on the town, the air outside was very comfortable, unlike the cruel heat that had characterized the past two days. And, just as Bill had promised, there appeared to be nothing endangering the town. People were going about their business casually, a couple even waving at Dipper good-naturedly before going on their way. It was utterly peaceful, and it sent chills up his spine.

“How are you still not content with this?” Bill demanded, feeling the chills. Dipper was starting to feel a bit embarrassed for his worry, but it wasn’t something he could just stop feeling. The day had been too nice thus far. Knowing the way his life went, it was almost certain that something was just waiting to go wrong, and he didn’t want to be in the wrong place when that happened. An idea popped into his head, his little trickle of boldness from earlier still working its way through his veins.

“Can we just go for a little walk?” he asked. “Just to make sure? It would be good for us to move around, and I’ll feel much better afterwards to get back to research.”

“And if we run into the same problem as yesterday?” Bill asked.

“Then we’ll have had a good reason to go out there,” Dipper said. “Bill, I want you gone just as badly as you do, but we’re both going to be in a lot more trouble if those portals get out of control. So, can you please just let me do this? I know that you’re impatient, but I also know that we’ll find a way. I just need to make sure that the town is safe.”

For a moment, the demon was silent. Dipper wondered if he was planning out the murder-suicide that was sure to come. He hoped that he would at least give Dipper a chance to say goodbye to everyone. Actually, maybe not, because Mabel would definitely say that she told him so, and he didn’t want to give her that opportunity. Better to get the whole thing over with quickly, then, and not waste time on sentiment.

“One hour,” Bill said. “That’s the time you have to walk through town and see for yourself that everyone is okay. After that, we’re coming back here to keep working.”

“You’re not going to kill me?” Dipper squeaked before he could stop himself. “No, wait, never mind, don’t answer that. Just… thank you.” It felt wrong to be thanking a demon for some reason, but it was a knee jerk reaction to the brief bid of goodwill.

Bill didn’t respond, but Dipper felt control of their legs return to him. Not wanting to waste a second of his hour, he quickly sped off down the street.

 

* * *

 

It took him 40 minutes to search the streets of Gravity Falls and decide that there really weren’t any portals currently forming downtown. Just to be sure, and because Bill hadn’t said they needed to be _back_ at the library in an hour, he took the ten minute walk back to the Mystery Shack and poked around a bit. He searched around the outside of the shack, and, finding nothing, stepped into the museum as well. There were still no portals to be found.

He walked outside not disappointed, exactly, but something close to it. He had been so certain that there was something dangerous nearby, to the point that he had argued with an insanely powerful dream demon, but he was now realizing that it had been for nothing. A tingle of embarrassment crept up his spine, and he hoped that Bill couldn’t feel it.

“Dipper!” he heard his sister suddenly call. He walked around the side of the shack to find her with Waddles and her friends, all three busy doing something with crickets. He decided not to ask. “What are you doing back so soon? When you left this morning, you had that look on your face that said you were going to stay at the library until somebody forced you out. Did you find the solution?” Her eyes betrayed only a hint of the real hope he knew to be rising up in her, and he knew that there was no way to let her down gently.

“Nope, no solution yet,” he said, trying not to watch her deflate. “Not that we’re not making progress, of course. Bill and I have some idea of where we’re headed with this. It’s just going to take some more time to make all of the pieces fit together.” He knew that Mabel could see straight through his mask of confidence, but she went along with it, offering a bright smile.

“That’s great to hear,” she said. “I bet you’ll have this case cracked in no time.” She whispered a couple things to Candy, then stepped away from their project to approach her brother. “You still didn’t say why you left. I know my brother, and it’s nearly impossible to get him to take a break from research.”

“I wish that were true today,” Bill groaned. “Would you mind coming back to the library with us and tying him up? I can’t stand to be with him right now, but he kind of stole that choice from me.”

“I was worried,” Dipper added, “about the town. I needed to make sure everyone was okay.”

“Aw, you don’t have to worry about that,” Mabel said. “I’d come and get you if anything went wrong, and the townsfolk are hardier than they seem. Everything’s going to be fine.”

“I know all that,” Dipper said, “but that doesn’t mean I can’t worry. I’m the only one who knows the spell, so I need to be the one on alert the most. I need to be able to close the portals before they get big enough to be an issue.” It was just logic, really.

Mabel considered his words. “You know,” she said, “you don’t have to be the only one who knows the spell. If you tell me what the words are, I can keep the town safe while you get your research done. The sooner you get Bill out of there, the better, right?”

“I, uh.” Dipper thought about it. While it was tempting to have a partner in portal closing, something held him back. He didn’t want Mabel charging at those things by herself, which he knew she would do if she had the spell. Plus, these rituals could be pretty unstable at times. If something went wrong, Mabel might not have the experience to fix it in time, and then she could end up making the problem worse, or getting hurt, or… “I think it’s best that I close them by myself,” he said. “Just until we know more about them. These things are totally unpredictable, and there’s no telling what could happen if both of us were closing them.”

Mabel rolled her eyes, although she still kept on her sunny demeanor so that it came off more as cute than sarcastic. “Pfft, Dipdop, you know that’s a bunch of bologna just as much as I do. I’ve used magic before, and that was just fine.”

“That was one time with a magic amulet,” Dipper said. “The spell was already cast for you, and you just had to bend the power to your will. It’s different when you cast it yourself. The power gets all weird.”

“I can handle weird,” Mabel said. “We’re partners, remember? Mystery Twins? We work together on these things, and just because Bill’s around it doesn’t make you invincible. We need to stick together.”

“I’m fine by–” Dipper stopped short. He heard something out in the woods.

Mabel was going to say something, but she stopped as soon as she noticed her brother’s expression and turned towards the tree line. Distantly, there was the sound of things moving through the trees. Branches were breaking and stones were knocking against each other. Dipper listened carefully, but couldn’t pick up anything to suggest that it was an animal of some sort.

“It’s nothing to worry about,” Bill said. Mabel turned to argue with her brother, but something about the demon’s expression must have made her realize who the speaker was. “There are all kinds of weird things in those woods. Better to let whatever it is find its own way out.”

Dipper ignored the demon and started to walk towards the trees. Mabel followed close behind, the look on her face fearless despite the possible danger.

“Really, Pine Tree, Shooting Star, your mortal lives are so short. Why waste your time on something that’s clearly not a threat when you could be having fun with friends or figuring out how to relieve yourself of a demonic companion?” It was shocking how easy it was for Dipper to block out his own voice, focusing exclusively on the forest in front of him. He stepped into the trees, following the sound of things breaking against trunks.

“Really, Pine Tree,” Bill insisted. “You only have three minutes before we have to go back to the library. You’ve already ruined one deal for me, don’t make your credit any worse than it already is.” Despite his desperate words, the demon’s tone was surprisingly calm. Either he didn’t really care as much as he was claiming to, or he was a semi-decent actor. Dipper tried not to think too hard about Bill’s motives. There would be time to figure out the demon later. At that moment, he needed to protect the town.

As soon as he could start to feel the pull of a portal, Dipper felt tingling down in his legs. Bill had given up his control on their mouth and was making a last-ditch effort to turn them around by stealing their mode of transportation. Dipper powered through. The fight was easier to win while he was actually using them, surprisingly, and he kept moving through the undergrowth until he finally came upon the swirling gold and green.

The first thing that Dipper noticed was that this one wasn’t lying flat on the ground like the first one had. Instead, it stood upright, facing the woods to the right of Dipper. It was also smaller than the others had been, standing around the same height as Dipper himself, if not shorter. Still, the force was no weaker for it, and he could see that it had already snapped off a number of branches from nearby trees.

“Does this look like nothing?” he demanded. Bill had grown quiet as soon as their eyes had landed on the thing, and he remained so. Dipper could feel a light tingle in the back of his neck, but otherwise the demon was leaving their body alone.

Dipper and Mabel approached the portal cautiously. Because of the way it was pointed and the size of it, they were able to get within several feet of it before Dipper decided that they were close enough. He looked at Mabel, who was still watching him, and realized that she was waiting for the ritual to start.

“Can you just, go over there, or something?” Dipper asked, flapping his arm in a general direction away from the portal.

“Dipper–”

“I’m serious, Mabel,” he said. “Bill and I can take care of this. You just go somewhere where there’s no chance of you getting hurt, and I’ll tell you when it’s safe.”

“I’m not going to get hurt.” Mabel crossed her arms and stared at her brother resolutely. Dipper knew that if she stayed, she would try to memorize the ritual, and that would be a million times more dangerous than even telling her the real thing. If Mabel got the wrong information, then she would likely run off into danger without a single way to defend herself. It might be less work telling her the words after all, but Bill found his voice again before her could express those thoughts.

“Didn’t you hear what Pine Tree said?” Bill demanded. “Seriously, it’s like the guy can’t get any respect. He was the one who put himself in danger by going out and getting the words, and now you want him to just hand them over to you because you asked nice? What are you trying to do, steal his thunder?”

Mabel fumed. For a desperate few seconds, she tried to say some sort of retaliation, but all that came out were a few angry splutters. She stomped away from Dipper, pushing through the undergrowth, and Dipper was very aware that Bill had gone too far. He tried to say so, but Bill had already started the ritual, and that meant that Dipper’s voice was stolen from him again.

“Ianuam claudet,” Bill started, and the energy started to swirl through them yet again. After Bill’s exhaustion the day before, Dipper was shocked at the intensity of it. He could feel himself lift off the ground an inch, and he was glad that Bill’s control over their mouth prevented him from yelping. “Ego clausitque mundi.”

Then, the chanting started, and Dipper watched the little portal shrink and disappear, just as the others had before it. Bill barely gave them a moment of calm before he started on the second half of the ritual, which was always more boring than the first. Even if Dipper could feel the energy running through him, it wasn’t nearly as interesting when there was nothing in front of him to witness.

“Ostium fractum. Divisiones dispersi sunt,” Bill finished, and the energy flow stopped, finally allowing Dipper to return to his firm place on the ground.

“Now that we’re _finished_ ,” Bill snapped, “we’re going back to the library.”

“Don’t tell me you’re mad that I knew where the portal was,” Dipper said, but Bill said nothing in response. Still, Dipper could feel a tightness in his shoulders that was no doubt caused by the demon’s irritation. Even if they couldn’t read each other’s minds, it wasn’t that hard to tell what Bill was thinking.

Dipper nearly shuddered at that thought. If Bill could get into his mind, he wasn’t sure what he would do. Having the guy in his body was terrible enough, but Dipper would just give up if Bill could read his thoughts, too. Come to think of it, there was no proof that Bill couldn’t hear what he was thinking. On the spot, he tried to come up with a clever insult to get a rise out of the demon.

_Triangle face_ , he thought, and was immediately ashamed.

“Dang it,” he muttered.

“What are you doing?” Bill asked.

Dipper didn’t get a chance to respond, because at that moment, Mabel came running back to them. Dipper was worried that she was going to start up the argument again, and got his reasons lined up and ready. He stopped, though, when he saw the look on her face.

“Dipper,” she said. “There’s something you really, really need to see.”

She led him forward, past where the portal had been standing a minute ago, and pointed out in front of them. A line of death marched into the forest. Everything along the path was dead. Grass, bushes, even trees had turned brown and brittle, where once they had teemed with green life. He saw the bodies of several squirrels lying on the ground, and he wondered if they had been sitting in the trees when it happened.

“Bill?” he asked.

“Oh, this could have been any number of things,” the demon said. “But nothing I’ve seen in several years, and possibly a couple of creatures with literally no weaknesses.”

“How many years is several?” Mabel asked.

“65 million.”

Dipper looked back at the spot where the portal had been. If he wasn’t mistaken, the path went straight out from where the back of the portal had pointed. “It must be from that other world you were talking about,” he said. “One of the pieces that fell out, like the eye yesterday.” He felt his legs start walking forward while he was still looking back, and he quickly whipped his head around to make sure they didn’t bump into anything. “Bill!”

“Sorry, Pine Tree, but I cannot miss this,” Bill said, marching through the dead plant life and nearly stomping on the squirrels. “Like I said, it’s been a while since I got to see one of these things work, and I’ve just got to see it again. Anything that can kill everything it touches has got my full approval!”

Dipper couldn’t get his legs to stop moving, no matter how hard he fought them, and soon enough Bill was sprinting down the trail of death with Mabel fighting to keep up.

“Wow, would you look at that,” Bill mused as they flashed by a dead raccoon. “That was a mother we just passed! Not only is she dead now, but her kids will starve without her soon enough. Whatever this thing is, it clearly understands that there is a subtle art to senseless slaughter.”

Dipper glanced over their shoulder briefly, knowing that Bill would continue to run whether he had use of his sight or not. He saw Mabel pause by the dead raccoon, and he was certain that she had to have heard Bill’s words.

“Leave it, Mabel!” he yelled, turning his attention back to the path in front of them. “There’s nothing you can do for it now.”

He didn’t hear her start running again, though, and when he glanced back after the path made a sharp turn, Mabel and the raccoon had completely vanished behind dead trees. Well, at least she wasn’t getting any closer to the monster. Unlike him, of course.

The further along the path they ran, the fresher the effects of the creature became. Smaller plant life, like grass, seemed to die instantly, as every patch they came across was yellow and stiff. The large ones though, the trees, took some time to properly die. As they got closer to the source of the destruction, Dipper saw more and more green leaves, some of them turning to yellow right before his eyes. Watching them, he was able to predict how close they were to the creature, so that when they finally turned a corner and saw it, Dipper wasn’t even surprised.

Okay, maybe he was still a little bit surprised, because when chasing a creature of death, one does not usually expect to run into a giant fuzzball. So, when the furry beast finally came into view, Dipper just had to stare for a moment to be sure that he wasn’t imagining the thing. Even Bill slowed, giving them a moment to take it in.

It appeared to be very long, its head stretched out in front and blocked by its mass of fur. Dipper also couldn’t see any arms or legs on the beast, but it was able to crawl across the ground slowly, a bit like a worm. Its fur was the only distinguishable part of it, white like fallen snow. A few bits of dead matter decorated its back, shriveled to the point of being unrecognizable. Dipper was almost disappointed. Bill wasn’t.

“Would you look at that!” he cried, joy spilling out as he pranced towards the furry mass. “Oh, it’s been far, far too long since I got to play with one of these things! You should have seen the way they used to march across the Earth, eliminating everything in their path. Majestic!”

“What is it?” Dipper asked, slightly leaning his body away when Bill took a step closer.

“It’s a death machine!” Bill laughed. He stepped up to the fine white hairs, then sprung away before they could graze him. “Oh, you’re looking for a more scientific description? Sorry, kid, but these things were long gone by the time humans showed up, and you guys are the only ones who ever needed to classify things the way you do. If you want, we can come up with a name together.”

“Sure, sure,” Dipper said. His eyes were flicking over the beast, trying to take in any details they could. Unfortunately, the only thing really noticeable about it was the fur. Everything else was completely covered up. “Can we focus on one thing at a time, though? Like making sure that this thing doesn’t wipe out the whole forest?”

Some of Bill’s joy faded a bit at that. He looked back the way they had come, locking their eyes on a bird that had gotten too close. Dipper didn’t want to look at the little mangled body, but Bill held their gaze there for a moment. He turned back to the fuzzball.

“Give me one minute, Pine Tree,” he said. Dipper was all ready to reject the idea, but then Bill took over their legs again and leapt into the living forest lining the sides of the path. He crashed through the undergrowth, and Dipper had no choice but to raise his arms to protect their face from stick and leaves. Bill didn’t care, didn’t even laugh when a particularly firm branch cut their right cheek.

“Ow!” Dipper yelped. “Bill, slow down!”

But Bill wasn’t in the mood for listening, and he continued to speed ahead until they were in front of the creature. Dipper expected to see a head or eyes, but instead there was just more fur. He was really planning to fight a giant fluffball.

“Oh, look at it,” Bill breathed. “Millions upon millions of hair-like spikes cover its body, each with venom potent enough to kill an elephant on contact. Nothing in the world stands a chance against it, and this is just the larval stage! Oh, they really don’t make monsters like they used to.”

“That’s great, Bill,” Dipper said. “But you’re not from Earth, so I assume that you have some sort of chance against this thing?”

“I don’t need chance,” Bill said, stepping closer to the creature. Dipper realized that its body was still progressing through the forest, making slow movements right towards them. “I am a multidimensional immortal dream demon with no weaknesses. There is no such thing as a fight between me and an Earth creature. Just a beating.”

“Really awesome, Bill,” Dipper said. “Now can we please get to the part where we keep this thing from killing everything?” He was doing his best not to sound scared, but Dipper was a little freaked out watching everything die around this monster. The sooner they got rid of it, the safer the town and the forest would be.

“One day, Pine Tree, I will teach you the ancient art known as ‘lightening up a little’. For now, though,” he sighed, “I suppose we can take care of this.”

“Awesome,” Dipper said. “How do we do it?”

“I haven’t got a clue!” Bill sang.

“Bill…” Dipper muttered. He wanted to berate the demon, but couldn’t find the words to properly express his frustration. Something like ‘How could you run into something like this without knowing how to fight it’ sounded a lot like what Mabel would say to him, and he disliked the similarity.

It was then that he noticed that the creature had stopped moving forward. He had been backing away from it the whole time they had been talking, but now he realize that they were quite a bit further away than they had been before. The creature was standing right where they had been a moment ago, swaying its front end – its head? – back and forth over the dead ground. The leaves around it were withering rapidly, the prolonged exposure to the spines apparently speeding up the process.

“What is it doing?” Dipper asked as the creature swung wider. “Is it sniffing us?”

Bill didn’t answer, gently turning their head in time with the creature. Dipper was going to ask again, when Bill dropped to the ground. They landed on their stomach in the rich undergrowth, and Dipper didn’t have time to say anything before the creature violently swung its head forward. Something flashed above Dipper’s head, and he looked back to see a group of spines embedded in a tree. It died instantly and started to decay before their eyes, but all Dipper could think about was how they had been standing in the needles’ path not a moment before.

The creature had started swinging its head again, faster this time. Dipper scrambled up and darted behind a tree, hearing the _woosh_ of spikes shooting just behind him. Another tree was struck, dying on the spot.

“Oh my god, oh my god!” Dipper cried as they ran through the trees. They could hear the creature crashing through the dying plants behind them, moving much faster than it had before. “What do we do? Oh my god, Mabel’s going to kill me for this. Mabel’s still out here! Bill, what do we do?”

Bill slapped his face, and Dipper realized that he had been hogging the mouth. They had to slow down a little to talk, but they didn’t dare stop. Every once in a while, a group of spikes shot past him, and he had to assume that the fur covering the thing’s body made it difficult to aim.

“Obviously, making a nightmare is out of the question,” Bill said. “We could keep running until it throws all of its spikes at us, leaving it completely defenseless.”

“How long will that take?” Dipper demanded. He wanted to glance back, just to get a better sense of what they were dealing with, but Bill wasn’t letting him. Instead, the demon had their eyes focused on the ground ahead of them, watching for any branches or bushes that might trip them. Dipper couldn’t tell whether he was doing it on purpose.

“Two months, give or take,” Bill said. “Possibly longer, depending on whether or not this is the species that is able to break its spikes into smaller sections.”

“Okay, do you have any real ideas?” Dipper asked. He thought about all of the trees that were dying around them, and realized that this thing had to be terrible for the health of the forest. He would have to get in contact with the wood nymphs later about replacing the dead.

“One,” Bill said, “but I don’t know how well it will work. After the way things went yesterday, there’s a possibility that we’ll die before we have any effect on this thing.”

Dipper gulped. “You don’t have any others? Just the one?”

“Just the one,” Bill said. Dipper couldn’t get a read on how the demon felt about this. Bill didn’t seem entirely opposed to the idea of their imminent death, and that made Dipper nervous. Still, there was no choice. They had to fight the thing. Dipper didn’t even consider running away to let it continue its trail of death through the forest.

“Okay, fine, we’ll try it,” Dipper said. “But you have to tell me exactly what you’re going to do. You can’t just throw me into this stuff again.”

“You drive a hard bargain, Pine Tree,” Bill said. They were still running, and starting to get a little out of breath, so his voice was shaky. “I’ve only been here for a little while now, so it’s a total gamble whether or not this will work. Reality-bending powers are probably way out of a normal human comfort zone, right?”

“Right,” Dipper said, far more casually than the suggestion deserved. His mind blinked back to their earlier conversation about teleportation, and the warning about his body being torn up in the process. Suddenly, running for two straight months didn’t sound so impossible.

Bill huffed. “In the mindscape, I have decent control over fire, if you haven’t noticed.” Dipper sighed, cutting the demon off in his rush of relief. Bill paused a moment longer, then continued, “Lighting things on fire is almost my trademark. It’s probably not going to be as easy out here, given that I still have to follow _a few_ laws of existing in a physical realm, but it should be possible. Maybe.”

Bill took a quick break to breathe, in which Dipper cut in, “Bill, normally I am totally into learning about this, and you can tell me all about it later, but can we focus on practical application right now? The theory isn’t going to help much if that thing’s aim gets any better.”

“Right, of course, survival,” Bill said. “Grab some of the dirt and pine needles off the ground, will you?”

They had to slow to nearly a stop to actually get the stuff. Dipper’s heart was hammering as he listened to the creature get nearer, even though it took just a second to reach down and scoop up a handful. The forest floor was naturally covered in dead plant life, and it felt rough and squishy between his fingers.

“Great,” Bill said. “Now let’s trade.”

Dipper had no idea how they did it, but they were able to switch limbs without breaking stride or dropping the dirt. He was shocked at how smooth the transition was, and he wondered if this was the sort of thing worth practicing.

He shook his head, clearing away the thoughts. None of this was worth practicing, because all of it was temporary. And besides that, he needed to be focusing on running for his life anyway.

He wanted to ask Bill how his plan was coming along, but the demon seemed completely focused on whatever he was doing with the dirt, and Dipper didn’t want to break that. He could feel tingles running up his arm at first, but not the same kind that shot through him when Bill was trying to use a part that didn’t belong to him. This was more akin to a limb waking up after being asleep for too long, and although it hurt, he knew that it was a good thing.

The whips and snaps of energy in his arm gradually steadied until he could feel a flow of energy moving through his arm and up to his hand, still tightly clutching the little bundle. Before his eyes, the plant matter started to smoke, a light whistle emanating from it as trapped air escaped its confines. He remembered that fire was hot just a moment before his hand went up in flames.

Dipper yelled, tripping and sending them flying into a fern. Bill’s concentration snapped, and the fire was smothered when it landed in the dirt. In an instant, the demon’s work was destroyed, leaving nothing but an ashy pile still clenched in his fist. Bill, at least, waited until they were up and running again to get angry.

“Pine Tree!” he shouted as they ducked to the side to avoid another spray of spikes. “What was that? Do you _want_ the death machine to catch up and flay us against a tree?”

“I’m sorry,” the boy said. “I panicked. People tend to do that when they catch on fire, you know?”

“I…” Bill took in a deep breath and looked down to find another handful. “Whatever. Nothing we can do about it now. This time, please don’t destroy the thing that’s meant to save your life.”

“I already said I was sorry once,” Dipper said, but he still leaned down to let Bill scoop up dead pine needles and dirt.

He felt the energy flow again, and tried hard not to be surprised when it lit in his hand. Because Bill was controlling the effect, Dipper couldn’t feel it all that well, but he was aware of heat encircling his hand and occasionally sneaking up his arm a bit. Although it was very hot, the flame didn’t hurt him, and he tried his best to relax while watching the tendrils dance around his fingers.

“Okay, great, you’ve got your fire,” he said. “Please tell me you’re actually going to use it to take care of that thing, and you’re not just waving it around for fun.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bill said. “Give me a minute, it’s not ready yet.” He bent down again just as another group of spikes wooshed above their heads.

“We don’t have many more minutes left, Bill!” Dipped yelped. He could hear the creature gaining on them. Even as they were losing energy, the thing seemed to be gaining more, intent on its hunt.

Bill fed a few twigs to the flames, and Dipper felt them burn hotter as the fire ate the new material. Bill kept adding things to their hand, going for bigger pieces each time. From twigs to sticks to slender branches, Bill fed the flames still larger things, until finally he tore a large piece of bark off of a rotting stump. It took up his whole grip, but the fire eagerly latched onto it and created a decent blaze.

“Ready, Pine Tree?” Bill asked. “This is the scary part.”

“Can’t wait,” Dipper said. He actually was looking forward to it a little bit. Even with adrenaline pumping through him, his body was getting sore from the constant run through the woods. Even if it meant facing that creature of death, he was ready to stop running.

“All you need to do is get me within sight of it,” Bill said. “Oh, and also make sure it doesn’t touch us. I wasn’t sure if I should mention that part. It seems obvious, but you never know with humans.”

“I’ve got it, Bill,” Dipper said. He stopped running and turned to face the beast. It was farther back than he had expected, almost obscured by the trees and undergrowth. Still, he could see its top crest charging at him through the plants, and that was enough to give him a basic idea of where it was. He guessed where the head was going to appear based on that, and felt Bill wind up their arm, aiming it right at the spot.

They waited, and watched as bright green leaves withered and turned yellow. The crashing grew louder, and Dipper realized that he could feel the ground shaking beneath his feet. The plants ahead of them started to tremble, and right as the swinging head burst through the undergrowth, Bill swung their arm forward.

The bark rose in a perfect arc, sailing through the air before landing right on the creature’s head. It became embedded in the creature’s fine spikes, nestling onto its crown like a dreadful ornament. For a moment, Dipper was worried that the hair would suffocate the flames, and he was just turning around when the fire started to catch. The creature froze as its spines started to smoke. Then, spreading outwards, they burned. Starting at the base and moving out towards the tip, each individual hair quickly burned to a chalky gray dust that dissolved in the wind.

The creature thrashed its head wildly, sending Dipper and Bill leaping for cover as sprays of spines pelted the forest around it, some of them still burning as they flew. Stuck behind a pine tree, they could only listen as the creature stumbled around, crashing into trees as it tried to fling away the fire. The fact that it made no vocalizations only made the whole thing worse. Dipper didn’t want to imagine burning alive without the ability to scream. Bill kept trying to inch them around the tree to watch the scene. but Dipper held them back, both for safety and squeamishness.

Eventually the sounds stopped, sucking the forest into a vacuum of silence. Dipper realized that he could hear himself breathing, and he wondered how long they had run for. He had been chased plenty of times before, of course, but this was the first time it had happened while his body was being used as a pathway for magic, and that added a whole new layer to his stress levels. He was probably going to need to take an actual break one of these days, otherwise Bill might start to seem the least of his health problems.

Bill scooted them around the tree, just enough that they could see the body of the creature, although it was mostly obscured by dead plants. The thing had stopped moving entirely, and Bill’s morbid fascination finally won out over Dipper’s caution. The demon leaped out from behind the tree and strolled over to the body, quietly humming a tune that sounded absolutely nothing like music. His humming stopped when they actually got close to it, and he slumped over in disappointment.

As far as Dipper could tell, the creature was still alive. In fact, it didn’t even look like the flames had injured it, besides disposing of its wicked spikes. What was left looked like a fat, white caterpillar. Its bulbous head turned up to stare at them, and its many little legs thrummed on the ground. He wondered if this was its first time experiencing a world beyond its thick coat. From the way it stared at him, he wasn’t that afraid to believe it.

“So, it’s not a death machine anymore, right?” Dipper asked.

“Hardly,” Bill sighed. “Unless you somehow end up underneath the thing, it’s about as dangerous as the normal-sized ones. A giant bird will probably make it dinner by the end of the day.” He nudged it with a shoe and the caterpillar flopped over, wiggling its legs uselessly in a clear sign of defeat. Even Dipper, who was grateful not to be dead at that moment, couldn’t help but feel a little bit disappointed by this turn of events. Bill added, “Just for fun, we _could_ help out whatever finds it.”

“No way,” Dipper said. “We should just… go.”

He looked around, trying to get a sense of their bearings. The caterpillar had left an obvious trail for them to go down, but they had turned and looped so many times that they could have easily been back where they started already. It would be faster to figure out where they were and just walk back to the Shack from there. He looked around for any clearly visible landmarks. Finding none, he stepped away from the wriggling beast and peered through the trees for anything that looked familiar.

“That’s interesting,” Bill muttered to himself, having seen something that Dipper had missed.

“What? What do you see?” Dipper asked, while at the same time trying to find it before it was pointed out to him.

Instead of answering, Bill walked forward and a bit to the right, passing trees and stepping over large swaths of leaves to get to his destination. It took Dipper a moment to finally see where they were headed.

“Is that…” The crater where he had finished the ritual. The crater where he had accidentally trapped Bill. The crater where Bill tried to kill him.

“One and the same,” Bill said, staring down into it. A fallen tree blocked part of the hole, but otherwise the dirt was barren, its embers long extinguished and left to turn to ash. Dipper wasn’t sure why they climbed in, or why the space made chills run up and down his spine. This should have been a productive moment! This was where everything had started, so observing the effects on the environment might have given him more clues about the spell they were searching for. At that moment, though, all Dipper could do was relive his last moments alone in his body. Had there been any warning about what was going to happen? Was there anything he could have done to prevent it?

Nothing actually had to happen to snap Dipper out of his thoughts. In fact, it was silence that finally brought him to his senses and made him remember where he was. Bill had stopped talking completely. No witty remarks, no casual observances rolled off of Dipper’s tongue. That alone was strange enough to make Dipper forget about his regrets for a moment and reset his attention to the present.

“Bill?” he said. His shoulders jumped at the sound, and he wondered if the demon had been lost in his own thoughts. “I’ve got something I’ve been wondering about for a while. The first time we made a deal, it sucked, but it didn’t do this kind of damage. That’s pretty great, because it meant that the Mystery Shack was still standing, but I’m curious why this deal caused… an explosion? I couldn’t even tell what it was.”

Bill licked their teeth before speaking. “It was an explosion,” he said, glancing at the fallen tree. Seriously, how had that not killed them on the spot? “You humans have recently started to get into the workings of nuclear fusion, although you’re still not nearly creative enough to harvest its full potential. Your leading scientists are on the brink of solving so many of your man-made problems, but they keep running circles around the same old ideas. Their dreams are pretty hilarious, you know?”

“But getting to the point?” Dipper asked. He was still getting a weird feeling from this place, and didn’t want to stay too long. “What is ‘nuclear fusion’ and what does it have to do with anything?”

“It’s all about smashing,” Bill said brightly, the mere mention of violence apparently enough to perk him up. “Take two atomic nuclei and smash them together, then harvest the energy that’s released. It’s the opposite of nuclear fission, when you take one thing and tear it apart. Souls work with the same basic idea. If you take two and force them into one body, it releases a massive amount of energy. Of course, we didn’t have any way to collect that energy, so it just exploded around us and killed anything nearby. Kind of a shame, really. I would’ve liked to hold onto that.”

“So why weren’t we hurt in the blast?” Dipper asked. No matter what the situation, Dipper was always eager to learn about the strangeness of Gravity Falls. Although it did feel a little odd to be a part of said strangeness, he was still fascinated by the details.

Bill shrugged. “Demon magic,” he said. “Probably has something to do with how my fire doesn’t burn your hand. That sure was a lucky thing, wasn’t it?”

Okay, Dipper should have known that Bill would only play for so long. He didn’t hold it against the demon this time.

He looked around once more, taking in the destruction his spell had caused. Sure, it had been an accident, but that didn’t mean that he could just walk away like there was no harm done. He needed to be aware of his mistakes so that he wouldn’t make more of them in the future, and find a way to fix the ones he had already made.

He turned away and climbed out of the crater, dusting off his hands as he stepped back into the living plant life. Now he knew where they were, at least. Time to figure out what Mabel had done about that raccoon. He and Bill walked through the trees together, wrapped in a pleasant silence.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that was fun! The monster was based on the puss caterpillar, a real species that lives in the Americas. Puss caterpillars look super cute, like tiny baby fuzzes that just want to be petted and loved. They are actually super super dangerous! What looks like hair is actually tons of spikes that break off the caterpillar and get stuck in your skin. The venom causes extreme pain and vomiting, so while not as dangerous as the one in this story, these things are still pretty bad news.


	5. A MABEL INTERMISSION

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo! I've been excited about this one for a long time, and I'm so glad to finally get to post it. We're taking a little break from the testosterone-fueled angst to see what Mabel and co have been up to. Please note, just because the title says intermission doesn't mean this chapter isn't relevant to the story! Important plot stuff is still going down!
> 
> Also, this chapter has a scene with an ungodly number of spiders. If that makes anyone really uncomfortable, please message me and we'll figure out some way for you to read the rest!

Mabel couldn’t have helped it. After hearing Bill talk about the orphaned raccoons, she had had to go back into the woods and find them, and then she’d taken them home with her, and over the past week she had been keeping them safe in her room. As far as she was concerned, there was really no other option, and despite heavy opposition from her Grunkle, she had managed to build them a little nest in an old shoe box.

“You can never trust those things,” Stan said, watching as she fed each one some apples she had just cut up. “Now they know where the food is. When they get bigger, there’ll be no stopping them.”

“I’m not going to keep them inside _forever_ , Grunkle Stan,” Mabel said. She held back a squeal of delight as one of the cubs lifted up its tiny black paws to grab the apple. By now, she had learned that it was always best not to startle them. “Once they’re big enough, I’m going to send them back into the wild, to be the free souls they were meant to be.”

“Great, so they’ll tell all of their buddies how to get into my refrigerator,” Stan grumbled. “If I hear one of them sneaking in some night, I’m going to declare it open season.”

Mabel paid no mind to her Grunkle’s words, offering instead a light “Bye!” as he went to leave the kitchen, probably to get himself comfy in the living room. As he was leaving, though, he bumped into Dipper. The boy was busy muttering to himself– or maybe it was Bill talking– while trying to stuff his notebook into his vest. The other hand was gesturing wildly in a fashion that didn’t match the speaker’s tone, and Mabel guessed that only one of them could talk that day, which meant a 50/50 split whether she got to talk to her brother or was stuck with the demon.

“Hey, bro-bro!” she said just as he passed the kitchen table. She had to keep her eyes on her work, but she was able to send him a small wave with her free hand before he opened the door. Dipper turned to look back, his mouth still open mid-sentence.

“Bye, Mabel, see you later!” he said. “You know, we should go to Greasy’s when I get back tonight. I’ve got a good feeling about today.” His right arm flapped around, and Mabel could hear the snap of his wrist popping. Then, without waiting for an answer, Dipper took off, leaving the door to slam shut behind him.

Mabel watched his retreating form through the window. Well, at least she knew who was doing the speaking for the day.

For some reason, a part of her wished that it had been Bill.

Dipper had been taking off like this for several days now, waking up early in the morning so that he could sprint off to the defense of Gravity Falls. He didn’t talk about it much when he got home in the late evening, but Mabel understood that he spent the morning searching the town and nearby woods for any new portals. The hunt usually led to several reckless adventures, all of which he and Bill took care of before they got out of control. Then, in the afternoons, he would bury himself in the library for research. Mabel assumed that it was going well, because he always came home in good spirits, but again he didn’t say much about it, just nice assurances that he was definitely making progress.

She turned her attention back to the raccoons, who were staring at her with wide, watery eyes. With her brother gone, Mabel had done her best to keep things normal at the Mystery Shack. She worked on her crafts and talked to her friends when they came by. Because Dipper was gone so often, Stan had made it her responsibility to make up for the skipped shifts. Of course, she was totally willing to do it. Dipper was dealing with a lot, and he needed all the time he could get if he was going to protect everyone. Mabel could give up her free time to help him to that end. Of course.

She gave the littlest cub its apple bite. The others had all started to yawn, right on time for their nap. She gently tucked them into the blanket she had prepared for them and watched them cuddle into the warmth. Honestly, Mabel had no idea what was going to happen with them when they got bigger, so she tried not to think about it too much. In the present, she simply liked to have them around. They were all adorable, and it was nice to have something akin to responsibility for her to focus on. Of course, her responsibility was nothing like Dipper’s, but she still appreciated it.

She picked up the box and carried it upstairs to her room. Stan had already settled himself in front of the TV, content to spend his Sunday without moving from that spot. Mabel offered a bright greeting as she passed, to which she received a grunt in response. Happy with that, she continued to make her way upstairs, where she deposited the box in a small play pen she had constructed with help from Soos. The enclosure was really just planks of wood with some wire fencing stretched between them, but it was enough to keep the babies in one spot while she walked around the rest of the house. She gently placed the box inside and then stepped away, wondering to herself what she should do next.

It was the first day that the Mystery Shack had been closed since she had found the raccoons, so she wasn’t entirely sure what to do with herself. It had been convenient being able to take quick breaks to run upstairs whenever she needed to, but now that she had some free time the babies proved more of a problem. She had never left them alone for more than an hour, and although they were small, she was certain that they could find all kinds of mischief if they got bored. So, whatever she decided to do, she would have to stay near the Mystery Shack.

Wandering back downstairs, she made her way to the kitchen where she pulled the telephone off the receiver and dialed Candy and Grenda’s phone numbers. Her friends each promised that they would come around noon, but that still left lots of time spent waiting by herself in the Shack. Mabel hung up and then marched back to the living room, where Stan was watching some new hospital drama.

“ _Are you an appendix?_ ” a blond man was saying. He had a wide jawbone and a stethoscope hanging loosely around his neck. The chart in his hand accidentally angled towards the camera, and Mabel could see several messy doodles where a patient’s information should have been.

“ _Why do you ask?_ ” A woman with bright pink lipstick batted her eyelashes at him and puffed out her chest, her breasts clearly snug in a uniform three sizes too small. This hospital must have been seriously underfunded if it couldn’t even dress its employees.

“ _Because I want to take you out._ ” The man and woman threw themselves at each other, smashing their lips together with such ferocity that Mabel was surprised they didn’t knock out a few teeth.

“They’re going to last two episodes at most,” Stan commented. He glanced at Mabel, and she wasn’t sure that he had realized she was there when he spoke. “What? You just come in here to gawk at a fat old man?”

“Nope, just wanted to see what you’re up to!” she said, perching on one arm of the chair. The doctor and nurse were still making out on the screen, while at the same time discussing why a patient’s feet had started swelling overnight. “Candy and Grenda will be here later. We’re going to keep working on our cricket circus.”

“Do those two have any actual parents?” Stan wondered aloud. “I mean, I’ve been in this town for a while, but I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen an adult who looks like either of them. A couple of little girls just appeared in town one day, and nobody else seems to mention it. Maybe Dipper should get on that once he solves the demon problem.”

“I can ask them later,” Mabel offered, but Stan didn’t hear her, his attention drawn into the drama continuing on screen. Somehow, the doctor and nurse had gotten themselves to the morgue. After pushing a body aside, the nurse climbed on and flipped onto her back, and then…

“Okay, that’s enough for you,” Stan said, pushing her off the chair. “Wendy’s restocking in the gift shop. Go hang out with her for a while, okay? And if you hear any moaning from the TV, don’t come in.” With that, he gave her another light shove, and Mabel made her way out of the living room and into the gift shop.

Whatever Grunkle Stan thought Wendy was doing, she was definitely not doing. She was wearing headphones, and Mabel could hear a ring of music as she danced around the gift shop, laughing and spinning in time with whatever the song was. Mabel watched for a moment, entranced, a wide grin breaking out on her face. Wendy glanced over, finally seeming to have noticed the young Pines. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and pressed a few buttons. The muffled music subsided, leaving them in a quiet shop.

“Hey, Mabel!” Wendy said, approaching the now fellow teenager. “What’s up?”

“Not much,” Mabel said. “Just waiting for Candy and Grenda to get here. I guess I was bothering Grunkle Stan, because he sent me out here. You need any help ‘working’?” She put the word in air quotes, a small giggle managing to escape her lips.

“Man, I would love help with ‘work’,” Wendy said, mimicking the gesture, “but I probably should get started restocking. Mr. Pines will probably get all up in my business again if I don’t get it done. You can hang out, if you want.”

“Sure thing!” Mabel said, grateful to finally have something to do. “I can even help out.” She knew the shop inside and out by now, so that restocking came as naturally as breathing. Sometimes she got a little creative with the way things were placed on the shelf, but the customers said nothing of it, so Stan let her go ahead with it.

“Hey, thanks man,” Wendy said, opening up one of the boxes she had brought in for the task. “This’ll make it go way faster, and when we’re done, we can go outside and light pinecones on fire or something.”

“Awesome!” Mabel cheered. Even if she was more into creation than destruction, senselessly burning things did have a relaxing aspect to it. So long as they were cautious with it, she could definitely get behind that.

So, they got to work, Wendy replacing the t-shirts while Mabel arranged the tiki masks and gave them expressions with post-it-notes. They chatted all the while, drifting from one subject to the next and occasionally laughing at something the other said.

“So yeah, that’s why I’ve basically called off dating until I’m in college,” Wendy said, finishing a lengthy story about her past two relationships. “What about you? You’re probably not with anyone right now, because you totally would have told everyone about it, right?” Mabel couldn’t deny that point, and also saw no reason to. “What about over the school year, though? Any eighth grade romance?”

“Oh, nah,” Mabel said. She idly shook a snow globe while she talked, not really watching as the white pellets settled onto the bottom. “It was a lot like how summer went. You know, lots of crushes here and there, but none ever really worked out. I did keep in touch with Mermando, but it’s different now, since he’s married and all.”

“Yeah, that really throws a wrench in things,” Wendy said. She looked away from the postcard stand to where Mabel was still playing with the snow globe. Forgetting about her duties for the moment, she left the postcards and walked up to Mabel, gently taking the globe from her hands. She shook it once and watched the snow whirl around inside. Held up in the sun, Mabel suddenly realized that the pellets were mixed with glitter. “Who needs boys, though, right? There are so many way more awesome things to think about.”

“Heh, yeah,” Mabel said. She wanted to be happy, but her mind wandered to her brother, running through the forest – or was Bill doing the running that day?– without her, and a few gray clouds blocked the sun in her mind.

Wendy watched Mabel’s demeanor change and placed the snow globe on the shelf beside the others. Her boots made no noise when she marched to the door.

“Come on,” she said. “We’ve done enough that Stan probably can’t fire me for laziness, and this room is way too stuffy anyways. I’ve got an idea for something to do while we wait for your friends.”

Mabel followed her outside, where they walked around back of the Shack. Wendy kept them a healthy distance away from the Bottomless Pit, and walked along the tree line, touching each trunk and running her fingers over the bark. Mabel was entranced with the display, Wendy seemingly completely absorbed in whatever she was feeling for.

“This one!” she yelled suddenly, proudly displaying her find. It was a very old pine tree, its trunk thick and marred with scars from various strange encounters. Mabel wasn’t sure what made this one different from any of the other nearby trees, but Wendy seemed certain in her conviction.

“It’s an old one?” Mabel said, not sure what Wendy was hoping for her to see.

“Way old!” Wendy agreed. “And the bark is kind of soft, too. It’s seriously perfect.”

“Perfect for what?”

Wendy grinned at her, excitement spilling out of her with no attempt to hide it. “I think you should know how to throw an axe.”

Mabel’s eyes grew wide. “You’re going to teach me?”

“Going to try,” Wendy said. She reached around and pulled her little axe out from hr belt, quickly unwrapping the soft leather to reveal the blade beneath. “I taught my youngest brother, and we were both champions at the lumberjack games for a couple years. I could probably show you a little.” She took a few steps away from the tree, Mabel copying the movement to put some distance between herself and the axe. In one graceful, easy movement, Wendy wound the axe back and then flicked it forward. Mabel barely had time to watch it spin through the air before it embedded itself in the tree with a satisfying _chunk_.

“Wendy!” Mabel cheered as the older girl went to remove her axe from the trunk. “That was amazing! How did you learn to do that?”

Wendy wrapped her hand around the handle and gave it a short tug. The axe pulled free, and she proudly swung it onto her shoulder. “Dad taught me,” she said. “And then I kind of liked it, so I kept practicing for a while. And then somehow I ended up being really good at it, I guess. That’s the short version, anyway.”

“And what’s the long version?” Mabel asked.

Wendy shrugged. “Years of practice and nearly taking a few fingers off. It took a long time for me to get the spin right every time, and then I decided to take on moving targets. It’s not impossible, but it takes a lot of work to get it accurate.”

Some of Mabel’s enthusiasm shriveled a bit. “And you think that I can figure it out in one day?”

“Sure I do!” Wendy said, removing the axe from her shoulder and offering the handle to Mabel. “Yeah, it takes a lot of work to get comfortable with it, but I’ve seen you knit entire sweaters in a single day. If this is something that you want to do, you’ll figure it out.”

Mabel stared at the axe for a moment before she reached forward and took it in her hand. The weight surprised her, and she had to adjust her grip on it before she looked up at Wendy. “Let’s do it!”

 

* * *

 

Axe throwing was hard. Like, really hard. Just understanding how to _hold_ the thing was hard. Then, there was the stance, and getting the swing right, and _aiming_. It all became manageable with time, but even on the off chance Mabel managed to hit the tree, she couldn’t figure out how to get the spin quite right. Every time she thought she had it, the axe would bounce off the tree and she would slump in disappointment before retrieving it again.

She continued to practice even when Candy and Grenda arrived, and they watched quietly, seemingly aware of her frustration and not wanting to make anything any worse. Every once in a while, one of them cheered her on in support, but otherwise they both stayed quiet and let her keep trying.

Eventually, it was Wendy who retrieved the axe from the ground and wrapped it up in its leather pouch. She offered a small smile to Mabel, whose arms were seriously tired but had no desire to stop trying. Still, she didn’t argue as she watched Wendy put the axe away.

“You did good today,” the teen offered, walking up to her once the handle was slid back into her belt. “You’re really coming along.”

“Ugh, I’m so tired,” Mabel sighed. “How long did you say you spent practicing?” Wendy thought about it for a moment, and Mabel quickly waved here hands, dismissing the question. “Never mind, I don’t think I could handle the answer. Maybe this axe throwing stuff just isn’t for me.”

“Probably not,” Wendy agreed. “It was a good way to blow off some steam, though, right?”

Despite the soreness creeping into her arms, Mabel did feel better after that. While she had been throwing, she hadn’t thought about Dipper or Bill or anything going on in Gravity Falls. Her entire focus had been on spinning the blade and trying to figure out just the right way to get it to stick in the bark. Even now that she was done focusing on it, her mind was still running on that loop, and she didn’t feel the need to hop off just yet. It was a really good distraction, but she wished it didn’t make her hurt so much afterwards.

“Yeah,” Mabel said. “I don’t think I’ll ever be a champion lumberjack, though.”

“Yeah, and you probably wouldn’t want to be anyway,” Wendy assured her, finally looking up at Candy and Grenda. “Hey, dudes! Thanks for waiting. Mabel looked pretty good, didn’t she?”

“While perhaps an axe would not be my weapon of choice, I do agree that you had excellent form,” Candy said.

“Yeah, I really prefer just punching things,” Grenda said. “But you do you, girl!”

“Aw, thanks guys,” Mabel said, running over to hug her two best friends. “I don’t think the axe is really my thing either, but it was cool to try something new. Who knows, maybe we can add a new act to our cricket circus!”

“I will begin working on it right away,” Candy offered. “It might take a long time to train the crickets, though. Perhaps, in the meanwhile, we can find something that is ‘your thing’?”

“What?” Mabel asked. “No, we don’t have to do that. I mean, I like to knit sweaters and put together scrapbooks, that’s my thing.”

“We need to find you a fighting thing!” Grenda said, punching a fist into the air. “I’ve got hitting, and Candy’s got her crazy human improvement contraptions.” The short girl nodded. “You should have something, too!”

“I totally agree,” Wendy added, finally approaching the little group. “If you haven’t noticed, things are getting kind of insane here lately. It doesn’t hurt to have some way to defend yourself, you know?”

“I‘ve got my grappling hook,” Mabel offered, but she could already tell that the idea was lost on her friends. They already had a plan in mind, and she realized how weird it was to be the object of one rather than the planner. Usually she was the one who helped people figure out their problems and go through some crazy steps to feel better. Seeing that there was no way to convince them out of this, though, she realized that the only thing to do was go along with it. Even if she wasn’t much of a fighter, it couldn’t hurt to play around with different ideas for an afternoon. If one of them happened to stick, she couldn’t be any worse off because of it.

“Okay, fine,” she said, smiling at the group. “Wendy’s right. Gravity Falls is in a lot more trouble than normal. We should know how to protect it, and to do that, we’re going to have to form the greatest defense squad this side of the Mississippi. You guys already know what works best for you, which means that I am currently the one holding us back. But no longer! Today will be the day that Mabel Pines finally figures out her thing!”

And so began their quest. Grenda took the lead in their efforts by introducing Mabel to the basics of punching and kicking. Mabel was surprised to learn that she wasn’t supposed to punch people in the face, and a little bit embarrassed looking back on how she had almost socked her brother when Bill first showed up. She was okay at it when Grenda was standing still, but as soon as they added movement into it, she lost all of her coordination and ended up in a heap without a single hit.

Next, Candy took over training. She introduced Mabel to a contraption that replicated Wolverine’s claws, a glove that produced three blades with the press of a button. Mabel thought the idea was awesome, but the blades were fragile, and she didn’t feel comfortable with the idea of possibly breaking her best friend’s invention. Candy then produced a helmet that could spit fire from a hatch in the front. After three close chances in as many minutes, they decided to retire that idea as well.

With all of her friends’ fighting styles attempted, they moved onto more creative ideas. Wendy suggested several improvised weapon techniques. Kitchen knives replaced daggers, a sledgehammer acted as a battle hammer, and a big stick became a staff. None of them worked out. Someone brought up the possibility of magic at one point, but it was quickly dismissed. Even though none of the others had tried it themselves, they all seemed to recognize that there was something off-limits about messing with any more weird powers.

After a failed attempt at slingshotting gravel found around the Shack, Mabel took a break to go check on the raccoons. Despite soreness in her legs from all of the physical activity, she was able to take the stairs two at a time in her excitement to see the cubs. They were up and moving around their pen when she arrived, a couple of them playing with the toys she had made for them while the other two tumbled around together on the floor. They all stopped when they heard her come in, then returned to their games when they decided that there was no threat.

“Good to see you’re at least having a good afternoon,” she said, then froze on her words and tried to backtrack. “I mean, not that I’m having a bad afternoon! I’m hanging out with my friends, and everybody else is having fun.” One of the lone babies took a break from its toy to look up at her, and its tail wiggled around a little. Mabel sighed and reached in, carefully taking the cub into her arms. It instinctively hooked its little claws into her sweater, and she could have squealed at the cuteness if she hadn’t become accustomed to it by now.

She sighed and hugged the baby tight against her sweater. “I’m just not a fighter, I guess,” Mabel whispered to the little cub. “Everybody else is really good at this fighting thing, but it’s just not me. I thought that maybe we would be able to find something that I’m good at, but it’s not looking so good.”

The cub yawned, a small whine escaping its mouth in the process. Mabel smiled down at it.

“That’s a good point, little guy. I am good at things! Maybe not punching or stabbing, but I can make things look cute, and I’m really good at making people smile.” She stroked its ear, marveling at the softness. “I’m good at making friends, too. I’ve got Candy and Grenda, and I even got Pacifica to warm up to me. That was a huge deal! And we’re friends too, right? I mean, we’ve only known each other a week, but I feel like I can tell you anything!”

The raccoon blinked at her, and she knew that it was thinking the same thing.

“Oh, you guys are just the best!” she squealed, then softened her voice, remembering that the babies were sensitive. “You guys are lovely. I’m going to put you back now, but I’ll definitely be back later with some watermelon. You deserve a special treat.” She placed the baby back in its pen with the others, giving each one a once over before she left. Peeking into their box, she noticed a little gray spider had found its way inside. She reached in and it immediately scuttled onto her finger, perching there while she inspected it.

“Aw, hey, little guy,” she said. “You must have gotten lost, because this is definitely not a good place to go hunting for flies. I was just about to go outside, I can give you a ride, if you’d like.” The spider stared at her, she was pretty sure, and she took that as confirmation. “Glad to have you aboard, partner!” With that, she dashed out of her room, down the stairs, and back outside to rejoin her friends. Just before she reached them, she leaned down and placed the little spider on a blade of grass. It stepped off her finger slowly, then turned back around to look at her.

“It’s been fun,” she said, “but all good things have to come to an end. You’re a spider, and I’m a girl. I’m afraid that this is where our destinies branch apart.” The spider remain silent, one of its back legs twitching ever so slightly. “Oh, don’t be sad! If you’re ever around, feel free to stop by and we can catch up. For now, though, you need to go. Be free!” The spider crawled down the blade and disappeared into the carpet of grass. Content with her work, Mabel stood back up and crossed the last few feet to her friends.

Wendy was hanging back from the other two for the moment, content with drinking a soda and checking her phone. Candy and Grenda, on the other hand, had found several pieces of wood, and appeared to be in the process of trying to construct a bow. It was impressive, actually, how quickly they were putting the thing together, even if Mabel wasn’t sure that they hadn’t bent the wood backwards.

“Mabel!” Grenda yelled upon seeing their friend. “We finally figured it out! You can be like one of those sexy elf rangers and be one with the forest!”

“Aw, you guys are the best,” Mabel said, looking down at their work. While the bow itself didn’t really look useable, it had been thoughtful of them to try. After all, her friends were just trying to include her. they didn’t have to go to all this trouble to do so, yet here they were, building her a bow out of junk they found around the Mystery Shack. “How about we take a break for a few minutes? You guys have done a ton of work already.”

Candy stood from their mini project and smiled at Mabel. “We are happy to be helping you in your quest. Friends help each other, right?”

“Haha, yeah, right,” Mabel agreed, grinning at her friend. “Still, I do think we should take a break. Maybe we should get some lunch?” Grenda jumped up at the suggestion, and Mabel saw Wendy peer over at them, her attention captured. “Lunch it is!”

It only took them a few minutes to gather everything they needed: food, plates, cups, and drinks were all readily available in the kitchen. While Mabel, Candy, and Wendy were all grabbing the food items, Grenda managed to haul a picnic table to a spot near where they had been practicing. Together, they laid out the utensils and presented the food, and after several minutes they had all sat down to eat.

Mabel herself was starving by that point. All of the day’s work had stolen a lot of her energy, and now her stomach grumbled as she looked at the assorted sandwiches and fruits. Just as she was reaching for a slice of watermelon, though, a small movement caught her eye. She lifted up the slice, and a little brown spider skittered out.

“Another one,” she murmured. She let it scuttle onto her hand and then held it up close to her face. No, it wasn’t the same one she had seen earlier, definitely not. That one had been able to fit on the tip of her little finger, but this one was larger and rested comfortably on her thumb. Thinking nothing of it, she leaned down and placed it on the ground beside them, letting it disappear into the grass.

When she looked back up again, half of the food was already gone. Desperate not to get left behind, she grabbed one of the sandwiches and took a large bite, hardly able to chew before she swallowed. Some of her hunger dissipated immediately, leaving her feeling lighter and happier. She took another bite, now allowing herself some time to appreciate the flavor as she closed her eyes in contentedness.

“Spider! Die!” Grenda roared, snapping Mabel out of her reverie. Her eyes shot open just as Grenda formed a fist above another brown spider

“No, don’t!” Mabel cried, cupping her hands over the little creature. Grenda paused, her fist just an inch from crushing Mabel’s fingers. “It’s not doing anything wrong, is it? This forest belongs to it just as much as us. We can let it go free.”

Grenda withdrew her fist and returned to her lunch. “Fine, you can help it. I don’t want to touch that thing, though!”

Wendy side-eyed the younger girl. “You do realize that you were about to squish it with your bare hand, don’t you?”

“Spiders and spider _guts_ are not the same thing,” Grenda said. She seemed to assume that that was enough of an argument, and Wendy had no real interest in furthering her point, so the conversation was dropped.

Mabel helped the brown spider reach the ground, and was surprised to find that this one was even a bit bigger than the last.

“There’s something weird about these spiders,” she said.

“Weird as in Dipper would want to look into it weird?” Wendy asked.

“I hope not!” Mabel said. “I don’t know where he is right now. I don’t think I’m equipped to solve a mystery on my own.”

“You are not on your own,” Candy reminded her, and Mabel turned to smile at her friend, which was why she didn’t see when the first of the spiders marched through the tree line.

Wendy yelped and jumped from the table, scattering pieces of fruit and sandwiches. Her axe was out, leather falling away like an autumn leaf. Mabel, surprised at the sudden move towards violence, turned back around. She understood immediately.

The spiders that marched into the field where not small enough to fit on her finger. They were far too big for a hand, even. The creatures that approached them now were up to Mabel’s shins, long legs pulling them across the grass. Their glassy black eyes glared at the girls, their brown bodies nearly quivering in anticipation as they locked themselves on course.

Mabel’s eyes fell to the fangs, and then she was done looking. She scrambled up from the table and stepped in front of Candy as a shield. Even if she wasn’t a fighter, she could give a kick to the spider face if it meant defending her friends.

“Guys, get to the Shack,” Wendy commanded, stepping in front of Mabel. Grenda was still on the other side of the table, staring at the growing army. A spider as tall as Mabel’s knee had appeared among their ranks. “Go! We can figure out what to do once we’re inside!”

Mabel turned to run, only to smack into Candy, who hadn’t started moving fast enough. The girls tumbled to the ground, landing in a heap of limbs. There was a tickling on Mabel’s legs, and when she reached back, she accidentally brushed off the smaller spiders that had already made their way onto her skin. She sat back quickly, eyes searching to gauge how many were crawling through the grass around them, when Wendy rushed by and hauled Candy up into one arm.

“Mabel, come on!” she yelled as she continued to sprint towards the house, the younger girl bouncing along on her shoulder. Grenda was already standing in the doorway, watching the encroaching spiders with a face of unmistakable horror. Mabel stood up, legs still shaky from the fall, and did her best to run after them. She was halfway to the porch when Wendy finally looked back. The teenager’s face turned ghostly pale, and Mabel instinctively turned around to judge the threat level.

Had Dipper been there, he probably would have given it a 7 out of 10. Certainly not something that should ever be dealt with more than a couple times a year, but ultimately manageable, so long as the right precautions were taken. At that moment, though, Dipper was gone, and every part of Mabel’s body was _screaming_ 11\. They didn’t even have a plan in place for a level 11 threat!

Of course, they had never planned ahead for a giant spider to appear form the forest, either. The trees bent forwards as it pushed its way through the thick foliage, one trunk starting to splinter from the stress. Branches pressed deep into its gray skin, but none were able to puncture it, most snapping off and clattering to the ground before they had the chance. Hundreds of smaller spiders climbed all over its body, clinging onto hairy legs or perching atop its massive abdomen. Its eyes, far more than eight, were all black as the night sky, and although Mabel couldn’t tell for sure, she was pretty certain that every single one was focused on the Mystery Shack.

In a single stride, the great spider stepped over Mabel. In another, it had its front legs hooked on the shack. As it walked, long strings of web trailing behind it, much thicker and heavier than any spider web she had seen before. She could hear her friends calling to her from the porch, but her mind couldn’t focus on what they said, still caught up in the sight before her. As the spider pressed itself against the building, it forced the door closed and wrapped it in heavy silk, sealing her friends and their shouts inside.

Mabel was frozen in place, floored by the sight of the giant creature hugging the Mystery Shack. She could feel spiders brushing against her legs, and was surprised that they didn’t seem to notice her. Their focus was directed exclusively on the shack, only moving aside a bit so as not to bump into her on the way. As she watched, sticky webbing coated the wooden surfaces, looping and knotting itself chaotically while the smaller spiders tore through it and further tangled the mass. It became a thick, ugly sweater for the Mystery Shack, filled with spiders and dead leaves. Mabel’s mind started drawing up the pattern for a proper Mystery Shack sweater, but she pushed it away. There would always be time for sweaters later.

Glass shattered somewhere on the building, and Mabel watched the spider stretch one hairy leg into the newly broken window. It rooted around for a moment before sharply withdrawing, emanating a low hiss of anger and pain. Its leg now sported a deep laceration that oozed thick, silver liquid, and several of the much smaller spiders walked along the limb to inspect the bleeding wound. Although it was hard to tell from a distance, Mabel was willing to bet that the cut was the same size as Wendy’s axe.

Her friends were okay and still fighting, then. She felt joy only for a moment before spiders started to stream into the window. Although it wasn’t big enough for the largest among them, the sheer number of spiders was overwhelming. No matter how good her friends were at fighting, it wouldn’t be possible for them to keep this up for very long. Behind her, spiders continued to march out of the woods, each wave slightly larger than the last. Soon enough, they would probably find a door or window large enough for all of them, and then her friends would be in very real danger.

Mabel felt another tickling on her neck and reached up to brush it away again. Before she could, the strange spider crawled up onto her hand, and she paused to look down at it. A familiar, tiny gray face stared up at her.

“It’s you!” she cried. The spider that had found its way into the raccoon box. It was unmistakable amongst the throngs of larger brown spiders. “Wow! I can’t believe you found me in the middle of all this.” She pointed at the lead spider, which had pushed its leg in through another window and was probably digging through their bathroom right then. The injured leg sat at its side, still messy but no longer bleeding. “Do you know what it wants?”

The tiny spider turned around to look at the giant one. It waved its front legs in the direction of the Shack in a motion that spoke of longing.

Seeing them now from the same angle, Mabel was struck by how similar the two gray spiders looked. In her head, something clicked.

“Is that big one like your mom?” she asked, holding the spider closer to her face. “Is she looking for you right now?”

The spider continued to wave, and Mabel realized that that was the only confirmation she could hope for. Language and species lay in the way of proper communication, and Mabel was forced to rely on basic instinct to tell her right from wrong. At that moment, she knew that she had to trust the little creature and herself. She couldn’t afford herself the luxury of a plan for ‘just in case’.

“If that’s your mom, then she must be really worried about you,” she said, watching the spider continue to dig through the window. Nobody was attacking its leg this time, and Mabel just had to hope that her friends were simply distracted somewhere else in the house. “And she’s probably not going to stop doing this until she’s searched the whole Shack. So we’ve got to let her know that you’re okay! Once she sees you, she’ll leave us all alone, right?”

The little spider stopped waving at looked at her. Mind made up, Mabel started walking towards the giant mother spider.

Moving forward proved immediately difficult due to the continuing surge of spiders. It was hard enough to find a place to step, but sometimes little ones darted under her feet just before she put them down. When that happened, she would grunt in frustration and heave herself back, intent on minimizing any harm done to the spiders. For her plan to work, she would need to be on the mother’s good side, and killing any of the little ones seemed like a terrible way to go about that.

After a long, frustrating slog, Mabel finally reached the mother, whose attention was still drawn completely to the shack. Mabel poked one of the hairy legs, but it did nothing to draw her focus. Going inside wasn’t possible, either, since the front door was blocked and any first floor entrances were covered in thick webbing.

Mabel noticed, again, the smaller spiders crawling over their mother’s back. A terrible solution blossomed in her mind, and she wrapped her arms around the nearest leg. The hairs tickled her face and made her want to sneeze, but she held it in as she started to shimmy up the limb. She just kept telling herself that it was a metal pole on the schoolyard, closing her eyes whenever the sea of spiders got to be too much for her. It was a hard climb, although not long at all. When she reached the top, she reached out for the back of the mother’s abdomen with one hand, maneuvering her legs so that soon enough she was perched on top, able to overlook some of the field.

It was all spiders. The ground had become a moving brown carpet, all spiders marching towards some unspoken goal. It was terrifying for sure, but also kind of cool. Mabel wished that she had a camera on her, then forced her focus back to the mission at hand. All of her creative endeavors could wait until after she ensured that her friends were safe.

Clinging to the back of the massive spider, she dragged herself up, towards the head. Other spiders continued to scramble around her, but they weren’t as numerous as they had been on the ground, so movement was made a little bit easier. Still, it was hard getting all the way up, Mabel nearly losing her grip and sliding off several times. More than once, she wondered to herself what she would do when it was time to get down, but she decided that future problems could wait for future solutions.

When she reached the head, she shouted, “Hey! I have your baby!” The spider continued to search through the Shack, so she tried again. “It’s okay, you don’t have to dig through the Mystery Shack anymore! I’ve got your baby right here!” She stretched her arm forward and felt the tiny spider crawl up, easily jumping from her hand to the spider’s head. The baby settled itself in the space between her eyes and grew still.

The giant spider froze, one long arm still deep in the house. Mabel wasn’t sure what was going on between the two, but she got the sense that there was some sort of silent dialogue passing between them that she wasn’t invited to. The smaller spiders continued to move around on the ground beneath them, but those that saw the unmoving leg paused their efforts and waited for some further command.

Slowly, careful so as not to disturb anything else in the house, the mother withdrew her leg from the window. Mabel felt hundreds of eyes on them as she pulled away from the house and turned herself away from the Shack. The spiders, sensing the change, immediately began the retreat. Those closest to the tree climbed straight up into the branches, while the spiders still on the open ground made a dash for cover. Looking back at the Shack, Mabel could see the spiders on the inside bottlenecking at the windows, squeezing out as fast as possible so as to keep up with the group. Before many had actually made it out, Mabel felt the mother lurch beneath her as she started walking back into the forest. In two slow steps they reached the tree line.

Just before Mabel was carried away into the forest, she saw Grenda’s face appear at one of the broken windows. Their eyes locked, and Mabel tried her best to give a cheery wave.

“Mabel!” Grenda yelled, her voice booming through the air. “Where are you going?”

“I don’t know!” Mabel called back, cupping her hands to her mouth. “I think I’m gonna be okay, though!”

Grenda didn’t get any chance to respond, because a moment later the Shack disappeared behind the forest trees, and Mabel was alone with the spiders.

It was incredible, riding through the forest on the back of a giant spider. Mabel guessed that this was to Oregon what flying carpets were to deserts. The mother, apparently more comfortable under the cover of foliage, was able to race through the trees, bending and dodging around trunks elegantly. Mabel could hear the other spiders moving around them, and occasionally even saw them leaping through the branches or running along the ground. Now that they weren’t attacking her home, Mabel could take a moment to appreciate the uniformity in their movements. Despite the speed, she never once saw two spiders crash into one another or trip over a surprise tree root, a feat especially surprising when she considered all of the extra legs to keep track of. The spiders on the ground easily maneuvered themselves over rocks and fallen logs, sometimes climbing up onto trees only to hop off a moment later when they had cleared an obstruction. They were almost like fish swimming in a school, the way their brown bodies rippled together over the forest floor.

During the charge, Mabel saw none of the other forest creatures. Dipper had mentioned to her that some of them had gone into hiding since the portals opened up, but she hadn’t realized how empty the woods would feel without them. She saw several regular animals, a crow and a few squirrels, but anything that showed up in the journals seemed to have vanished. It was truly bizarre, and she had a feeling that Dipper would have been all over it if he wasn’t caught up in everything else at the moment.

After riding for an hour, the spiders finally started to slow down.The mother took long, heavy steps, weaving herself through two last trees before they came to a break in the woods. Here, two large rocks pointed up into the sky. They were draped with mosses and shrubs, but had proven inhospitable for any larger plant life. It was at the base of one of these that the mother finally stopped. She lowered herself down to the ground and curled her legs beneath herself. The tiny spider hadn’t moved since they started running, but now it wiggled a bit and danced around on its mother’s head. The other spiders filled in the spaces around them, climbing on top of the rocks or nestling close together in the small clearing. In an instant, the ground was a carpet of bodies again, but this time it was still, as each of them settled down to rest after the eventful day.

The spider beneath Mabel was still for a long time, and she started to worry if the mother had been injured, if maybe one of her friends had delivered an irreparable blow. But that didn’t make any sense, because Mabel had seen how quickly the injury from the axe had healed, and she doubted that Candy and Grenda could have done much more damage than that. Plus, they had been so busy with the smaller spiders, she doubted that they could have had time to actually fight the big one.

She gently stroked the spider’s back and felt the large body twitch beneath her. Okay, not dead yet was definitely an improvement over possibly dead. She continued petting the massive spider, feeling it move beneath her. After several minutes, one of the front legs raised up, high above their heads, and for a moment Mabel was frightened. She suddenly understood what it must have been like to be a bug right underneath a person’s shoe. The leg came down gently, though, tapping the top of her head and mussing the hair a bit. She felt a tiny tickle on her little finger, and looked down to see that the little spider was gazing up at her. She smiled at it, and it stared for a moment before scuttling back to its mother’s head.

“Mabel!” Wendy’s voice rang through the forest, so close that Mabel was surprised that she hadn’t heard the teen coming. The smaller spiders perked up, twisting around to stare into the trees, but the larger ones, including the mother, stayed completely still. One or two raised their heads, but that was all.

“Wendy!” Mabel called back. “Stay where you are; I’ll come to you!”

“Mabel?” Wend repeated.

Mabel slid off of the mother spider onto a patch of dirt beside them. Then, she began to pick her way through the crowd, back to the trees. Some spiders parted a bit to let her pass, but not all of them, so she wasn’t able to make it all the way before Wendy stepped into the clearing.

“Mabel, where are– oh my god.” Wendy stared at the sea of giant spiders, some of them turning to get a look at her, and Mabel, standing right in the middle of them.

“Wendy!” she called. “You’re okay!”

“Yeah,” Wendy said. “I, uh, yeah. Are you?”

“I’m great!” Mabel said. She hopped over the last of the spiders so that she came to stand in front of Wendy. Several of the spiders, noticing that Mabel didn’t consider the girl a threat, settled down again and ignored the pair. “Are Candy and Grenda alright? And Grunkle Stan?”

“Yeah, everybody’s fine,” Wendy said. “It was looking pretty close, but as soon as you did your thing, they all gave up and ran off. So, good job!” She offered a high five, which Mabel happily reciprocated. “What did you do, anyway?”

Mabel pointed to the mother spider and said, “She wasn’t trying to hurt us or anything. She was just looking for her baby, and it happened to find me. So, I did the only thing I could and reunited them. Now they’re a happy family again, so they’re going to leave us alone.”

Wendy looked over the massive crowd of spiders, uncertainty painting her face. Mabel realized that they must have looked very different to someone who had been fighting them only an hour before, but she needed Wendy to trust them as much as she did.

“They’re really not that bad,” she promised, and she leaned down to rub one on the head. Its leg twitched at the contact, but otherwise it remained still, content to rest for a while. “They’re not from our world, so they were probably all really scared when they first got here. I bet that’s how they got separated in the first place, and then the mother spider was willing to do anything to get her baby back. But after she did, she was super nice! They’re all really gentle, and I think they’re grateful that I helped them out. So there’s no reason to be afraid of them anymore.”

Wendy looked away from the spiders and down at Mabel. “You really trust them?” she asked. “Because if they decide that they don’t like Gravity Falls so much and come after the town, we’re going to have a big problem.”

That was certainly true. Given the crisis it was already facing, Gravity Falls was not equipped to deal with a spider invasion. Although Mabel knew that she would feel awful if anything did happen, she found that she had no actual fear of such a thing happening. She really trusted these creatures, even if she hadn’t known them that long yet.

“I do,” she promised. “I trust all of them, and if anything goes wrong, then I’ll take the blame for it.”

Wendy looked at the packed clearing once more, then smiled at Mabel. “You don’t have to go that far. I just know that if you trust them that much, then I can, too.” She peered down at their feet, just inches from an outstretched spider leg, and quickly glanced back up. “Let’s get back to the Shack now, yeah? Stan’s making us clean up that whole mess they made, and I kind of left Candy and Grenda to his mercy.”

Wendy took Mabel’s hand to leave, but Mabel wasn’t ready to go just yet. Her gaze darted around the clearing for a moment before resting on the mother spider who had grown still again. From this distance, it was impossible to discern the little one, and the mother looked very lonely at the base of the rock. Mabel realized that while the other spiders were all pressed snugly together, they had given her plenty of space to herself. Despite all of the spiders nearby, she seemed very much alone.

“I’m worried about her,” Mabel said, pointing at the spider. “She pretty much stopped moving once we got here. Do you think she’s hurt?”

Wendy stared at the spider for a long time before responding. “You guys were moving really fast just now,” she said. “I bet she’s still just out of breath.” Something in her voice betrayed a hint of sadness, but Mabel didn’t want to pursue it right then. Instead, she let Wendy guide her back into the trees, away from the large gathering. Behind them, the spiders shuffled forward to fill in the empty space.

 

* * *

 

Dipper had found a name. It was couple hundred years old and slightly smudged, but now he knew that a spellcrafter had definitely settled down in Gravity Falls at some point. If Dipper could find her work, then he could find her contacts. With those, he would be able to trace the web of spellcrafters all the way to the one he was after. The puzzle pieces weren’t coming together yet, but they were laid out before him, waiting to be assembled.

So he got a little excited about it, and in his excitement he forced Bill to run the whole way home with him. They had gotten much better at walking with one leg each, to the point that they could go for short jogs without issue. This mad sprint, though, caught Bill by surprise, and Dipper could feel the demon fighting to keep their balance. Dipper, frankly, didn’t care. Finally, he had real news for Mabel. After a week of research, of finding nothing, of disappointment and frustration, he finally had a lead. The solution had just become slightly more tangible.

He rounded the last corner to the Mystery Shack, his mouth open to call his sister’s name. The sight of the Shack made his eyes widen, and he paused mid-sprint. Bill didn’t. They tumbled to the ground, Bill bracing them just before Dipper’s face smacked gravel. He could feel the dull ache of a skinned knee, but otherwise they were uninjured. As soon as they stopped rolling, Dipper peeked out at his home.

It was covered in thick, messy cobwebs. There were several large piles of dirty webbing lying on the grass outside, but most of it still clung to the roof and walls. He and Bill stood up, choosing to walk rather than run closer to the mess. As they neared the walls, Dipper started to see the spiders wiggling around in the clumps of web, clearly too small to have spun it themselves. All of the windows on one wall had been broken, except for the one overlooking his and Mabel’s bedroom. That small miracle didn’t produce any comfort in him.

“Mabel?” he called, approaching the front door. Webs stuck to his shoes, but after pulling them off twice, Bill became tired of it and forced Dipper to walk with the silk trailing on the ground behind them.

“Ma– AH!” He yelped, cutting himself off, when the front door cracked open.

Wendy pushed outside, hauling a ladder behind her. Dipper took a quick moment just to breathe before she noticed them.

“Oh, hey Dipper,” she said while she struggled to hold the door open. “Did you just get back?”

“Y– yeah,” he said. He took a step towards her, and Bill followed, albeit slowly. By the time they made it to the porch, Wendy had almost made it through on her own. Still, Dipper grabbed the door, helping her with the last couple inches. “What, uh, what happened?”

“Man, you probably missed the coolest thing that has ever happened here,” Wendy said. She dragged the ladder down the steps with her and talked while she went, Dipper trailing not far behind. “There was this giant spider army that came and laid siege to the Shack. I can’t really tell you Mabel’s side of the story, but me, Candy, and Grenda were all stuck inside fighting off the hordes.”

“Wait, what do you mean you can’t tell Mabel’s side?” Dipper asked. Bill flapped his hand around a few times, clearly agitated with something but unable to express what. They had tried going notepad and pen like they had the last time, but Bill’s handwriting in the mindscape was nothing like his handwriting in the physical world. Rather than trying to parse together the shaky, overlapping lines, Dipper had done his best to read Bill’s mood through hand gestures. At the very least, he knew when the demon was angry.

“Dude, your sister was amazing out there,” Wendy said. “I still don’t know exactly what she did, you’ll have to ask her that, but she got the spiders to lay off and basically saved all of our lives. Seriously, I’ve given her a ton of hugs already, but you should probably go give her one, too.”

“I’ll try,” Dipper said, giving her a thumbs up with her good arm. Bill gave a solid thumbs down, but Dipper ignored it and got him to at least march them into the house.

The first floor was pretty normal. A couple little things had been knocked off of bookshelves, and he saw several little spiders climbing across the wall. Unsettling, of course, but so far he saw nothing to get worried over. He heard Stan grumbling about something in another room, and quickly ran up the stairs to the next floor. If his Grunkle saw him, he would get roped into cleanup duty, and he really needed to see Mabel before that happened.

The second floor was in a much worse state of disarray. Broken glass lay beneath the windows, and random objects had been strewn across the floor. He and Bill picked their way through the mess carefully, managing to get to their shared room without stepping on the glass.

Mabel stood inside, speaking softly to the raccoon cubs. Dipper wasn’t sure that it was a good idea to keep them like this, but Mabel had insisted that they needed a home, and Bill hadn’t been interested enough in the conversation to allow them to have a fight. She glanced up when she heard the door open and waved at him. Bill waved back, his hand flopping around loosely on his wrist and producing a tiny giggle from Mabel. Dipper ignored the exchange, taking the last few steps to meet her.

“Mabel,” he said, “oh my god, you have to tell me what happened today.”

So, Mabel quickly flew into the story, starting with finding the tiny gray spider in the raccoon box and going all the way up to when she and Wendy left the clearing. A wide smile broke out on her face when she got to the part about reuniting mother and baby, and all the while she held one of the raccoons close to her and stroked it with her fingers.

At the end, Dipper was dumbstruck. Bill made an effort to clap for the finale, but Dipper’s limp hand didn’t allow him to produce much sound.

“I…” He licked his lips, his mind stick caught up in the details of the story and having difficulty getting him back to the present. “I can’t believe you did all that.”

“I know, right?” she cried, grin blossoming again in greater strength than before. She laughed and shifted the baby onto one arm so that the other could deliver a small boop on her brother’s nose. “I was freaking out a little bit because normally you’re the one to deal with these kinds of things, but I figured it out and I saved everybody! Can you even believe it?”

“Of course I can,” he said, but at the same time he was still trying to wrap his brain around the whole thing. He had been so caught up in his research at the library that he hadn’t been there when everybody needed him. Had Mabel’s intuition been wrong, something terrible could have happened to the Shack, to her. She was lucky this time, and so was he.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” he said. “If this ever happens again, I promise that I’ll be here for you.”

He certainly wasn’t expecting Mabel to laugh at that. “Dipdop, you’re so rigid!” she said. “Don’t you realize what all of this means? I’m okay by myself! There are really scary things out there, but I can handle them, too. Our methods might be a little different, but we can both defend Gravity Falls when we need to. We’re the Mystery Twins!” She held out a hand for a high-five.

Dipper couldn’t return it. He was still stuck in the what-ifs, the terrible possibilities of things that could go wrong. He wanted Mabel to feel good about herself, but not to the point that she became reckless. When something threatened Gravity Falls, he wanted to be there to protect her. Who between them had studied the journals? Who had a demon lending some of his power?

So, he didn’t return her high-five, or repeat the name of their little duo. Instead, he said a few lame words about needing to help Grunkle Stan clean up and went back downstairs. Somehow, he would have to find a way to keep this town and his sister safe at the same time.

Bill’s hand lay still against his side, his steps matching the rhythm of footfalls perfectly.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone doesn't know, the reason we don't see giant bugs in the present day is because our air lacks enough oxygen for them to survive.


	6. You're Not Very Bright But I Think I'll Keep You

The Gravity Falls city hall was, besides the Northwest manor, the grandest building in the town. Tall pillars stood just outside the giant oak doors, and the floor inside was made up of small tiles twisted into elaborate patterns. Brass chandeliers hung from the ceilings, illuminating paintings of long-dead mayors.

Dipper didn’t understand why so nice a place couldn’t afford to have a single window.

“Was that thunder?” he asked. “Is there a storm going on out there?”

The secretary shrugged, her movements somewhat constricted by a tight suit jacket. “If you need anything else, I’ll be in the mayor’s office.” She turned around and walked out of the room. Dipper could hear her high heels echoing down the hallway.

He sighed and looked at the maze of filing cabinets in front of him. The day before, they had finally found the name of their spellcaster, a woman named Norma Inchfield who had settled in Gravity Falls in 1873. With her name in hand, he had decided that the next thing to do was look through old town records to figure out where she had lived. He hadn’t really realized just how much stuff he was going to have to search through. Gravity Falls was such a small town, how many residents could it have even had?

“Do you want to unearth some juicy secrets about the Falls’ history?” Bill asked. “I bet you there’s at least one murder cover-up hidden in here. If I win, I get to punch us in the face. Deal?”

Dipper ignored the suggestion, instead marching up to the nearest cabinet and peering at the label on it. It was peeling off and the lettering was faded, but the words were still legible.

“Oral Records A though G,” he read out loud, then stood back up. “That’s not normal to have around, is it?”

“Probably not, but who knows?” Bill said. “Your human bureaucracies are a bit too complex for me.”

Dipper pulled away from the cabinet and scanned the long lines. They needed housing, or residence, whatever they chose to call this sort of thing. He started walking down one row while Bill idly ran his hand along the drawers, occasionally opening one at random and pulling out the first document he could reach.

“Chester P. Malone was admitted to the hospital 13 times, each time as a result of being mauled by a different bear,” he read out loud. “In order, he was attacked by a brown bear, a black bear, a brown bear with a scar on its face, a brown bear with two legs, a white bear, a bear with wings, a koala bear, a second black bear that _seemed_ different somehow…”

“Here, this has to be what we’re looking for,” Dipper cut in, observing a label that read _Residential Records In-Iz_.

“…A giant bear, a grandmaster bear, and a sleeping bear,” Bill finished, a bit miffed that Dipper had stopped his fascinating reading, if even for a moment. He held the article for a long time, staring at the cabinet without making a move to open it. Dipper knew that the demon was doing it to get on his nerves, but he also knew that Bill wanted to figure this out just as badly as him and would have to break down eventually.

At last, Bill released a great sigh and dramatically tossed the folder to the ground, scattering its contents across the floor. In a florid motion, he whipped the cabinet open so that it banged forward and bounced back, nearly closing again before he caught it and opened it a little gentler.

“Feel better with that out of your system?” Dipper asked.

“I could probably go for another, but that will do for now,” Bill said as he started to flick through the files. Ina, Inbeth, Incdrop… “Inchfield!” he declared, pulling out the file and raising it above their heads in triumph. Dipper immediately noticed how skinny it was. The folder could only have held a couple papers, maybe three max.

Bill brought the folder back down the eye level and opened it, revealing its limited contents. The first was an old, sepia photograph of an ageless woman. Her brown hair was in a bun on top of her head, and she appeared to be wearing a dress made of black feathers and fur. Bill flipped it over, and they saw that _Norma, 1873_ had been written on the back.

The next item appeared to be some sort of contract, written in such intricate calligraphy that Dipper himself couldn’t parse it together.

“Do you know what this says?” he asked Bill.

The demon skimmed it quickly, their eyes flying across the paper so fast it almost made Dipper feel dizzy. “It’s a contract between Norma and the Northwests,” he said. “They let her live on their property, and in return she would perform favors for them, probably of the magical variety.”

“She lived in the Northwest mansion?” Dipper asked. “Does it say where?”

Bill skimmed the contract once again, then shrugged. “Not exactly, just that she wasn’t to enter the main house without permission. They must have given her a smaller place elsewhere in the estate.”

“Of course,” Dipper sighed. “That place is huge, what are the chances that we’ll be able to find whatever shack they set up for a little old woman more than a hundred years ago?” While Bill was glancing around the contract, Dipper noticed another paper sticking out from behind it. “What’s that last one?”

Bill pulled it forward, revealing a page covered in someone’s neat print handwriting. It appeared to have been pulled out of a journal of some sort, one side having clearly been torn away. He was grateful for the simple lettering, as he was able to read it to himself without Bill’s help.

_Miss Inchfield came to us about a month ago, and she has been absolutely lovely in the time she has been here. Upon arriving in Gravity Falls, she was ready and able to assist us with the problem of the Wends family, who had all come down with a terrible sickness. Miss Inchfield was able to cure the entire household, including one year-old Elise, who has since returned to her bright and cheerful self. After that, Miss Inchfield asked to move into that shack that resides in the woods out back of the manor, near the creek. That area has been unstable ever since that terrible mudslide, but she insisted, and I believe that her work is doing wonders for the land around. Why, if she stays long enough, she might make it safe to continue building on…_

The words went on, but Dipper had stopped reading. Norma Inchfield had lived in a shack in the woods behind the manor, somewhere near a creek. He hadn’t explored the woods around the Northwest estate very often, so he didn’t know where they would find a creek, but it was more than they had known that morning. They could start searching today, and with any luck find it within a week.

“We’re going to run after this thing now, aren’t we,” Bill stated, flipping the folder closed and stuffing it back into the cabinet.

“No time like the present,” Dipper said. He looked down the row of filing cabinets, at all of the mess that Bill had created on their way. “Should we clean that up, you think?”

“It’s like you said, no time like the present!” Bill laughed, and a slap to Dipper’s thigh got the boy running out of the room and back through the halls of the building. In an instant, they were out the door, and Dipper finally had a chance to see the swirling clouds and feel the wind rake across his skin. As soon as they were outside, lightning struck in the distance. Thunder rolled in a moment later, signaling that the storm wasn’t far off.

“You sure you want to do this now?” Bill asked. A note of concern edged his voice, although Dipper doubted that it was anything serious.

“Yep,” Dipper said, resuming a brisk walk down the sidewalk. “The sooner we find Norma’s old home, the sooner we can figure out how to free you. Isn’t that what you want?”

“Of course,” Bill said. He crossed his arms, then let them drop down to their sides again as he took a deep breath. “Until we figure that out, though, I am still stuck in here, and I don’t like it when your body gets soaked. It’s cold.”

Dipper almost chuckled at that, but forced himself to hold it back. Bill did have a point, anyway. “You should just hope you don’t have to see my hair when the rain gets to it,” he said. “You know how big it gets when I shower before bed? Imagine it like, twelve times that.”

“Jeeze, Pine Tree, we might not be able to get through the door,” Bill said. “We’ll be in real trouble if that happens.”

They laughed at that, Bill’s high-pitched shrieks mingling with Dipper’s gentler chuckles to produce something that sounded much more human, much happier. Even when their laughter died down, the smile stayed on their face. Dipper wasn’t sure who was holding it there, but he didn’t mind it. Instead, he focused on getting them to the Northwest manor before the storm hit them. Already, he could feel tiny pricks of water bouncing against his skin.

The drizzle continued when they reached the estate, the wind picking up more and waving the trees around the grounds. He ran past the main house and dove into the woods out back, not trying too hard to conceal himself from the main house. The Northwests, while not overly fond of him, were still grateful for all of the times he had helped with their supernatural problems. If they noticed him running around the estate, they would be gracious enough not to send guards after him immediately.

He ran into the trees, glad that they would provide protection, at least for a little while. He was going to get soaked on the way home, but he needed to start searching now. Every moment he spent not looking for a solution felt like wasted time.

The only had to walk for a couple of minutes before they came across a creek. Although it was totally possible that it was a different one, Dipper decided to follow it, traveling deeper into the forest as he went. Bigger rain drops started to fall down on them, but Dipper resisted every urge to turn back. He would wait until searching became literally impossible, and then he would start to find his way out of the woods. He wasn’t entirely sure how that would work, given that he had already lost his way a little bit, but he had to try.

He really didn’t expect to find the shack, so when it appeared from behind a large bush, he took a moment just to stare at it and make sure he was looking at the right thing. It was clearly old, and hadn’t been used in many years. Battered protection runes decorated the front door, which explained why the Northwests hadn’t done anything with it by now. When it had first been abandoned, they hadn’t been able to get anywhere near it, and after many years had probably forgotten about its existence. Now, the seals were so old that they were practically useless. He felt a tiny jolt of energy when he approached the building, but was otherwise able to get to it without issue.

Excitement added a bounce to his step. Every piece to the puzzle was important, but this one was especially so. A real spellcrafter would have so many more resources than the Gravity Falls library. Not only could there be information relating to their possession problem, but other spells and rituals that would be impossible to find elsewhere. He grinned brightly as Bill reached forward and pushed the door open.

Neither of them expected to find a portal here, of all places. It spun on the floor, dragging knickknacks off of shelves and sending papers into the air. Streaks of blue whirled around inside, tinting the single room with blue light.

Dipper’s eyes grew wide and he jumped back, only to rush forward again. “B– Bill!” he cried, watching a paper disappear into the vortex. “Do something, before it destroys everything!” The force coming from it wasn’t very strong, so Dipper was almost able to stand on the edge and stare down into it.

Bill hesitated. “Something about this isn’t right. The ones you’ve seen so far have all been basically the same, so why does this one seem different?”

“Bill, it could be sucking in everything we need,” he moaned. They had gotten this far already, why did Bill have to get cautious _now_? “Just do the ritual. Or I will. I don’t care! We just need to protect this stuff!”

“I’ll do it,” Bill snapped before Dipper could continue his frustrated rant. The demon took a deep breath before reciting the same words that Dipper had heard so many times before. Dipper felt the energy building inside of them, but it was different this time. Instead of flowing through his body, he felt like it was just growing, heating up and burning him. Bill either didn’t notice or didn’t care, and pushed through the words as he had always said them.

The chanting didn’t start, though. Instead, there was a _bang_ , and Dipper flew backwards, out the door and into the rain. It had started in earnest now, and pelted him as he lay on his back and tried to understand what had happened. Realizing that the portal was still open, he sat back up and stared into the shack.

“What was that?” he asked. The portal sucked in another page with a crack of electricity, and he hopped off the ground with a yelp. “Never mind, you can tell me later. Just close that thing!”

Bill said nothing, even when Dipper rushed forward so that they were teetering on the edge again. Without control of his arms, Dipper couldn’t slap the demon to his senses, so he hoped that staring down into the abyss would convince him to get started.

“Bill!” he yelled. “Please! Please do this!” They couldn’t lose all of their progress just like this, after they had done so much work to get to this point. If they lost this, then they would have to start all over, and there was no guarantee that they would ever find another spellcrafter from Gravity Falls. If this, here, was their only chance at finding a solution, then they couldn’t let it go.

“Pine Tree,” Bill muttered, and that was all. It was then that Dipper realized how loosely his arms hung at his sides. The demon had spent all of his energy already, and that finally raised a red flag in Dipper’s mind. Using his demon powers was hard on Bill, but he was usually able to go through a simple ritual without a problem. Something was very wrong with this portal.

Dipper didn’t have time to figure it out. Things were still getting dragged towards the spinning vortex, and he needed to make sure that that stopped before he did anything else. He opened his mouth to start the ritual himself when the strangest thing happened.

Without anything entering the portal, or even the size changing at all, the force suddenly increased dramatically. Dipper, standing on the edge, didn’t even have time to register the change before he was yanked straight down, tumbling headfirst into swirling blue. As he fell, he briefly spun in the air, and he was able to turn around just long enough to see the portal closing behind him. It shrunk slowly, just like they always did, before vanishing into darkness and leaving Dipper in empty space.

“Bill?” he squeaked, feeling his arms fall limply beside him. In the darkness, it was impossible for him to see them at all.

“We’ve really done it now, Pine Tree,” Bill said.

They continued to fall. The air around them became chilled, and Dipper started to feel resistance when he tried to move himself around, as though he was in water. There had never been a splash, though, and he could still breathe fine. Still, some part of him insisted that he had been submerged and refused to listen to logic.

He tried holding his breath, and found that no matter how long he did so, he never felt any discomfort. Breathing came upon him instinctively, but it was no longer necessary.

“Did we die?” he asked. “The whole time you were talking about not wanting to be stuck in my body after I died, is this what you were talking about? Is this what it’s going to be like from now on?”

“We’re not dead,” Bill said. Dipper tried to press him for more, but he refused to speak again. Then, in Bill’s silence, Dipper heard laughter.

At first, he thought it was the demon, but he realized that it was a child’s laughter, coming from somewhere in the darkness. It was soon joined by others, voices high and low and somewhere in between, laughs that bubbled up from the stomach or were snorted through the nose. Then the wailing started on top of that: a little girl screeching, over and over, only interrupted by large sniffles. It should have been loud enough to give Dipper a headache, but all it really did was annoy him.

Voice after voice filled the space, speaking many languages and with a full range of emotions. He was lost in it, thought he might start to lose himself in the madness of it. He tried to talk, but couldn’t differentiate his own voice from those around him. Just as he thought he might scream, he felt his hands come up and wrap tightly around himself. His normal reaction would have been to lean forward, but since there was no one there, he instead pulled his legs up and curled into a small ball, while around him the voices continued to overwhelm.

With his eyes shut, Dipper didn’t notice when the blue lights started to appear in the darkness. Only when they were strong enough to push through his eyelids did he finally crack them open, and he was entranced by what he saw.

Spots of blue light danced around him, some as small as his hand while others were as large as buildings. They appeared to be blocked by some sort of dark screen, so he could only see a filtered version of them that wasn’t strong enough to illuminate himself or his surroundings. The shape of the screen, though, gave him the sense that he was in a long, dark tunnel, the ends of which he still couldn’t see. Oddly enough, he was not falling in the direction he presumed to be downwards. He was floating sideways down the tunnel, almost like he was floating along a river.

The voices were still there, but with the blue lights they seemed almost friendlier. They didn’t seem to be there to harass Dipper, but to welcome him to whatever this place was.

“Bill?” he tried again, and was pleased to hear his own voice. “Do you know what’s going on?”

“We’re about to meet someone,” Bill said. “He’s very dangerous and cunning, so try to be on your guard at all times. Don’t accept anything from him, especially if he asks for something in return. Got that?”

“Don’t make deals with him,” Dipper said, because that had always gone _so well_ for him in the past. “Is he a demon like you?”

“A demon, yes. Like me, probably not.”

Before Dipper could ask for clarification, though, the voices stopped all at once. At the same time, the screen vanished, and Dipper was able to see blue orbs of light dancing around him, changing shapes and bouncing against each other. With the screen gone, they started to converge on him. Dipper didn’t have time to be scared before he was completely enveloped in the warm embrace, the world turning to white and forcing him to squint.

There was something firm beneath him now. Bill pulled a hand away to feel around. They were lying on solid ground.

Working together, they stood up and looking around. A great expanse of white surrounded them, with no change in light or texture to be seen. In the light, at least, Dipper was finally able to see himself, not that there was much on him worth noting. He looked the same as he had before he fell in, if not a bit dryer. Even though he had only been in the rain for a moment, he had felt soaked to the bone at the time.

At that thought, the setting changed. Above him, where a sky should have been, the white turned to gray, and heavy raindrops started to fall. Large trees with smooth trunks and perfect leaves sprouted from the ground, growing rapidly until they seemed to touch the gray sky. The floor became a carpet of green grass. It all looked a bit like something from a child’s play set, and Dipper felt a bit like a doll that was being manipulated. Still, he turned around to get a better sense of his surroundings, and he turned right into Norma Inchfield’s shack.

It was a good replica, but not exact. The worn seals were gone from the door, and light flicked out from the windows. Even without that, it felt a little more used, somehow, a little more inviting. Curious to see where all of this was headed, he approached the door.

Bill reached out to grab the handle, then stopped.

“Remember what I told you,” he whispered, before pushing it open.

 There was no furniture in the small shack and the walls had been cleared of shelving and parchment. Because of that, Dipper assumed, the remaining space looked much larger than it had before, the back wall extending far in front of him and the light from the windows not reaching every nook. A strange being floated in the center with six eyes that trained on Dipper when he stepped in. Six horns encircled its head like a vicious crown.

“Bill,” it said. “Please come in. You’ll let in the rain.” Dipper obeyed, and heard the door gently swing closed behind him. The sound of the latch clicking into place seemed to echo through the room. “Come closer, now.” Dipper took several steps forward, so that he was almost underneath the thing. Closer now, he could see that it was a goat head. Where there should have been a neck, a bush of grey fur grew. “Now sit.”

Dipper leaned back and landed in a chair. It was red and plush, but had a straight back that kept him firmly upright.

“Warner!” Bill greeted, pulling up their lips in a fake smile. He kept their hands tightly clasped on their lap. “Can’t believe that I get to see you again! How long has it been, now? One million years? Three million?”

“Fourteen, Bill,” Warner said. “The apes were still finding their footing in the world, and your nightmares were making their efforts much more difficult.”

“Oh, right, the great apes!” Bill laughed, snapping his fingers. “Boy, back then, I was just starting to play around with the idea of hunting for sport! Man, those gazelles never saw it coming, right?”

The goat head, Warner, stared down at them, and Dipper felt Bill deflate a bit. Still, the demon held tight control over their mouth, so Dipper couldn’t add anything to the conversation. Of course, given the current topic, he probably couldn’t have said much anyway.

“So, I’m here now,” Bill said. He waved his arms in mock celebration, letting them fall limply at the wrists when he was done. “You going to let us go soon? We were kind of in the middle of something, and it pretty much had nothing to do with you. Why are you here, anyway? Wait, never mind, don’t answer that. We can play catch up once Pine Tree here lets me out of his smelly meat sack.”

Warner floated closer to them, taking a long look over Dipper’s body. The boy squirmed under the intensity of the stare, all six eyes slightly glowing as they traced over his form.

“Dipper Pines,” he said at last, pulling away to float in the middle of the room again. “I know this one.”

“You know me?” Dipper asked before Bill could stop him. “How? Who are you, anyway?”

The goat head stared at him for a moment. It was impossible to read the creature’s emotions, if he even had any. Bill certainly did, but he had said that the demon would be different from himself. How different could demons be, anyway? New questions bubbled into Dipper’s mind, piling on top of each other so heavily that he almost missed it when Warner started speaking again.

“Bill, you’ve been so eager to talk this whole time,” he said. “Would you like to introduce me? From what I understand of manners, it would be the polite thing to do.”

Bill grumbled for a moment, if only to keep Dipper from speaking up again. “Fine,” he said. “But think about letting us leave after that, okay? We’ve got business.” He waved a hand up at the goat head, as though Dipper somehow hadn’t noticed him hovering several feet off the floor. “This is Warner, an old, uh, coworker of mine. He’s an alright guy, if you can stand to be around him for a few minutes. I personally can’t, but hey, that’s just me. The guy’s a life demon, if you have to know.”

“I would use the term demon of order,” Warner said, “but, for the sake of human understanding, life demon will work as well.”

“Life demon,” Bill repeated.

“So there are many types of demons?” Dipper asked. “I read that there was a lot of debate about that. I mean, I always knew that Bill was a dream demon, but I figured that maybe it was a term that applied to all of them, or it was actually a specific thing.”

“Demon of chaos,” Warner said. “There exist many types of demons out in the multiverse, each with their own abilities and agendas. There are certainly more than just dream demons. After all, not all of us have the time to run around and torture little humans in their sleep.”

“Hey, you know, when business is slow, it’s an easy way to get some power flowing,” Bill said defensively, but Warner didn’t seem to notice.

“Dipper Pines,” he said, floating close again, “you’re a smart boy. I know this for a fact. What do you think I do, as a demon of order? Or, as my colleague put it, a life demon?”

“I, uh…” Dipper stared into the glowing eyes, and for a moment thought he recognized them. He blinked, though, and the feeling passed. They were goat eyes, after all, and he had never really become acquainted with any goat besides Gompers. “I’m not sure,” he said. “As a dream demon, Bill creates dreams, so, maybe you… create life?” It sounded dumb coming out of his mouth, but again, it was impossible to tell what Warner actually thought of it.

The demon made no movements, staying uncomfortably close to Dipper as he spoke. “To put it in a very basic, simple term, yes, Dipper Pines. I create life. Specifically, I design life before it enters the world. Knowing that a creature is about to be born, I give it traits to deal with whatever situation it is being born into. If a demon of order is good at their job, they should be able to plan an organism’s entire life before it’s born.”

“And I take it that you’re good at your job?” Dipper asked.

Although his expression didn’t change, Dipper almost thought he heard a smirk in Warner’s next words. “Indeed. I am very, very good at my job. Most of the time, anyway. So long as certain demons of chaos don’t interfere with my work.”

“Hey, first of all, it’s not like I interfere on purpose,” Bill said, jabbing a finger into the air. “The humans you make are prone to vivid dreams and paranoia. Do you know how much potential people like that have for dream demons? If I happen to know a good catch when I see one, who can blame me for going after it?”

“No matter how good I am at my job, it is impossible for a demon of order to predict the possible interference caused by a demon of chaos,” Warner continued, ignoring the little snarls bursting from Dipper’s throat. “Once one of them gets into a human’s life, all of that careful planning falls apart. The human’s life is thrown to chaos, and it can start a terrible domino effect unless special precautions are taken beforehand. So, if I am not entirely courteous to Bill, I do ask that you forgive me. We are two beings woven from very different threads.”

“But you’re both still demons?” Dipper asked.

“Yes. We are both demons,” Warner said.

Dipper wanted to take a moment to process everything, but he knew that they needed to get moving. He had no idea where they were or what was happening in Gravity Falls, but nothing good could come from being trapped in… whatever this place was.

“Can you tell me what we’re doing here?” he asked.

“And how soon you plan to let us leave?” Bill added.

Warner’s eyes flashed pink, bright enough that it filled the room with light and nearly blinding Dipper. It was very brief though, and a moment later they returned to their gentle glow.

“Suppose we take a walk, Dipper Pines,” he said. The chair disappeared out from under Dipper, and he landed painfully on his tailbone. Bill caught them so that their head didn’t hit the ground, but it was a near thing. Behind them, the door of the shack swung open. A cold wind snaked into the room, raising goosebumps on Dipper’s arm. He watched as Warner floated overhead, towards the open door.

“It’s raining right now,” Dipper said. “Wouldn’t you rather wait until the weather’s a little nicer?”

Warner paused at the doorway and stared outside, just out of reach of the fattest raindrops.

“Yes,” he said, “I suppose a sunny sky would be far more appropriate.” In an instant, the clouds melted to a pleasant blue and a yellow sung hung in the sky. The thick, grassy carpet appeared to be perfectly dry. “Ready to go now?”

“Uh, yeah, sure.” Dipper stood up with Bill’s help, and followed after Warner who had already started floating into the trees.

“So, Warner,” Bill said once they caught up. “You really haven’t answered my question, despite all of the times I’ve asked it, and we are kind of on a schedule right now. You planning on letting us go back to reality soon?”

“You are a very rude guest, Bill,” Warner said, and Dipper felt a tingle up fear shoot up his spine. Bill crossed their arms. “I would like a chance to talk with Dipper Pines for a while. It’s not every day that I get to meet one of my own creations.”

“Wait, you–“

“Yes, yes, there will be time to discuss that later,” Warner promised. “But I have already told you a great deal about myself. I would like to know more about you. I was able to track you for most of your life, but my view became fuzzier last year, and I became completely blinded just recently. Have you been up to anything interesting?”

Dipper looked down at his arms. Bill was digging their nails roughly into their skin, not enough to break it but painful nonetheless. “I mean, being possessed by Bill has pretty much taken over my thoughts lately,” he said. “That’s kind of a big thing that happened.”

“Indeed,” Warner said. “And what of your sister? And the rest of your small town? Are they doing well, at least?”

“I don’t think I’d say they’re doing well, no,” Dipper said. “Things are kind of falling apart right now. Literally.”

“You don’t say. Please tell me more.”

“Pine Tree!” Bill hissed before Dipper could respond. “Do not forget what I said.”

Dipper frowned, hopeful that Bill would be able to feel the message. He grabbed for control of their mouth as soon as Bill released it.

“Sorry about him,” he said. “Anyway, yeah, Gravity Falls is kind of in trouble right now, and I’m pretty much the only one who can do anything about it.” So, he launched into telling all that had happened in the past week and a half. He told Warner all about the portals and the monsters, and even a bit about Mabel’s run in with a giant spider. It was surprisingly nice just to talk to someone about it, even if that someone was a goat head floating six feet off the ground. They continued to walk through the woods as Dipper talked, and he noticed that things around them started to feel more real. The grass beneath their feet became patchy, dotted with dirt and decaying matter, while the shapes of the trees diversified, none ending in perfect spheres of leaves on top. He started to feel a breeze stir up at one point, and it blew down a few leaves from up above. He continued to talk while he observed all of this, and when he was done, Warner’s eyes were glowing blue.

“You are an impressive little creature, Dipper Pines,” he said. “Hopeless, of course, in the eyes of the universe, but still impressive for a human.”

“Thanks, I guess,” Dipper said. He was starting to understand that demons were terrible at giving compliments, so he had to be grateful for the effort. When a period of silence lapsed between them, he broke it up with an awkward cough. “So, speaking of portals and stuff, I do want to get back home before the whole town is destroyed. Is there, uh, any particular reason we’re here?”

“Finally, Pine Tree speaks with some reason!” Bill shouted. It was the first time in fifteen minutes, and apparently that had been far too long a wait for the dream demon.

“I wanted to show you something, actually,” Warner offered. Just like that, they were standing on the edge of the crater where Dipper and Bill had made their deal. Of course, that wasn’t possible. This was a replica in some alternate universe, but it still held an eerie feeling in the air.

“I’ve seen this before,” Dipper said. “I mean, there was when we accidentally created it in the first place, but we also visited again after that.”

“I guessed that, Dipper Pines,” Warner said. “But however much you think you had seen of this place already, I’m afraid there is something here that you missed.” He floated out, so that he hovered exactly in the middle of the crater. His eyes flickered different colors rapidly and out of time with one another. “Would you like me to show you?”

“No thanks, Warner, we’re alright,” Bill said. “We’ve seen plenty of this place already, and Pine Tree wasn’t lying when he said that we needed to get back soon.” Dipper could feel a tingle in his legs as Bill tried to get them out of there, but it was no use. Dipper was curious about whatever was going on. Besides, if this guy was pretty much Bill’s mirror opposite, as they seemed to be implying, he couldn’t possibly be that bad.

“No, Bill, I want to know what he’s talking about,” he said. He stepped closer to the crater so that his toes rested right on the edge. “If there’s something here that can help us out of this, I want to know what it is.”

“I am certain that this can help in your endeavor,” Warner said. There was a sound like a tiny silver bell ringing nearby, and then a portal opened up right next to Warner. Dipper’s stomach dropped for a moment before he realized that it wasn’t pulling anything in. It was just an image of a portal, not nearly as dangerous as the ones they faced in reality. “This is what you have been fighting with, correct?”

“Yeah, that’s it,” Dipper said. “Do you know what it is?”

“I do,” Warner said. “I’m sure that Bill has told you that he’s seen them before. Well, so have I. They’re nasty little things, cheap tricks that can be thrown around when one becomes desperate. I’m honestly surprised that your problem has gotten this bad.”

“Pine Tree, your human intuition is giving me a very bad feeling about this,” Bill said. “We know how to close the things already, what more do you want?”

“I want to know how to keep them from opening up anymore,” Dipper said. He looked up at Warner again. “Do you know how to do that?”

Warner floated down a little bit, although he didn’t move any closer to Dipper. “In a sense,” he said.

Dipper stepped into the crater, being careful to keep his balance. Bill had made their arms rigid against their sides, and Dipper had a feeling that the demon wouldn’t catch them if they fell this time.

“Please, tell me what I have to do.”

Warner floated back up, increasing the distance between them dramatically. He turned his body over so that all six eyes pointed straight at the ground.

“It’s a very simple thing, Dipper Pines,” he said. “Just say the words, ‘ _Ianuam claudet. Ego clausitque mundi,_ ’ and the portal will close for you. In a couple of days, your problem will be solved.”

Dipper, so excited to finally have an answer, deflated a bit. He backed up, although with their current angle it did little to distance him from Warner.

“I don’t…” He shook his head once, but it did nothing to shake out the confusion building up inside of him. “That doesn’t… Is this some kind of joke?” He looked up at Warner again, and decided that the creature probably had no idea what joking was. “Never mind, but… It doesn’t make any sense. That’s what we’ve been doing, and those things are still out there. Did we do it wrong, somehow? I don’t understand.”

Warner zoomed straight down, so that he and Dipper were face to face. From this distance, Dipper noticed that the goat head was breathing, despite not having a respiratory system.

“You’ve been trying that, and it hasn’t worked?” Warner asked. “Are you certain that you said those words exactly?”

“Yeah, those are the ones,” Dipper said. “Then we followed it with another part to make sure that the portal stayed closed.”

“Say those words to me, if you don’t mind,” Warner said.

“Uh, sure. _Ostium fractum. Divisiones dispersi sunt._ ” Dipper knew those words well, because they had been the only parts of the ritual he himself had ever said. Bill seemed to have a better grasp of how it worked, so he always took over for the ritual, despite the fact that Dipper had it memorized by this point.

“Fascinating,” Warner breathed.

“Okay. That’s kind of a weird reaction,” Dipper said.

Warner didn’t mind the comment. “Dipper Pines, you have been fighting these vortexes every day for over a week now. Do you even know what they are?”

“They’re portals, right? To another universe, or something.” For some reason, the words sounded fake coming out of Dipper’s mouth, like he was lying.

“That is what they _do_ ,” Warner said. “But the thing itself is actually much more than that. It is a collection of great amounts of energy, gathered from and seeking out the world around it. For every object it consumes, it is able to pull off a bit of energy from that object to increase in size and strength.” As if to demonstrate, a little pebble flew into Warner’s model portal, causing it to grow an inch. “When you cast the spell I just told you, it forces that energy to stop doing its job as a portal.” The small portal folded in half like a piece of cardboard, the edges still clearly visible somehow. A pebble that had been on its way up now clattered to the ground.

“The energy is still present, for a time, but it has very little effect on your reality at this point. If you leave it for a couple of days, that energy should disperse into the universe around it. The interesting part is when you add on the spell that you just told me.” He mumbled the words to himself, and Dipper watched as the folded portal split into two pieces. “First, it chops up that energy into much smaller packets.” The two pieces shot off in opposite directions, disappearing into the trees before Dipper had a chance to turn his head. “Then it scatters them to the surrounding area. Once they land, they will begin again their roles as portals, just so that you can find them and close them up again. It’s akin to humans’ understanding of the circle of life.”

The words and explanations were there, bouncing around in Dipper’s head, but he couldn’t pin them down. Because, if what Warner said was true, then they had been running around increasing the spread of portals this whole time. He didn’t have time to dwell on guilt, though, because now confusion was building up inside of him, with something much hotter and darker rising just beneath it. Bill had helped him all this time, Bill had _told_ him to use the second half of the ritual…

“Pine Tree,” Bill said, but goddamn, _Dipper was tired of hearing his own voice_.

“Shut _up_ , Bill!” he yelled, cutting off whatever Bill had been about to say. Flames were alive and burning in his stomach. “Is all of this true? Have we been making this problem worse the whole time?”

Bill didn’t answer, and the silence was just as grating as the demon’s snide remarks.

“Oh my god. Oh my god, I can’t believe this is happening.” Dipper started to pace, then whipped around and kicked a tree. Pain here wasn’t like pain in reality, and the feeling in his toes wasn’t nearly satisfying enough. “You! I trusted… I thought you… Oh my god!” He kicked a tree again, but it did nothing to make him feel any better. He wanted so badly to use his arms right then, but no amount of fighting would make them yield. His heart was hammering in his chest.

“It’s nothing to do with you or Gravity Falls,” Bill said. “This is between me and–“

“Gravity Falls is being _destroyed_ , Bill!” Dipper yelled. “That’s got a lot to do with me! Especially now that I know that I’ve been helping out the guy who’s been tearing it apart. What is your problem with my home, anyway? Why can’t you just leave us _alone_?” He kicked a tree again, and this time got a more satisfying response from his foot. A tear pricked in his eye, and he felt his heartbeat start to slow. “What was the point of all of it?”

“I believe that I know the answer to that,” Warner said. Dipper looked up at him, and noticed that the six eyes were turning alternating shades of yellow. “Bill and I–”

“I can speak for myself, Warner,” Bill said. Dipper’s hands had curled into tight fists, but they remained rigidly at his sides. Bill took one long, slow, breath before starting, and Dipper was surprised by the effect it had on his own mood. He was still furious, but his head felt a little bit clearer. He could think for himself, at the very least.

“Pine Tree,” Bill said, “you have to listen carefully. I know that it _looks_ like I was destroying Gravity Falls just to mess with you, but there’s more to it than that–”

“But you were still tearing it apart, right?” Dipper said. “You were all ready for the portals to spread until I couldn’t handle them anymore, and just let the town get eaten up.”

“You’re taking it too personally,” Bill said. “It was never that simple. I needed some way to get back at Warner, and this was the best way to do it. You just kind of ended up in the middle of it.”

“What does that mean?” Dipper looked up at Warner. “What is he talking about?” He held their mouth shut, preventing Bill from answering by himself.

“All of the pieces of Gravity Falls that you lost were taken into the mindscape,” Warner said. “Had Bill been there to receive them, he would have torn their atoms apart and absorbed the energy until he had enough to destroy me. He’s tried it once before.”

“Why didn’t it work the first time?” Dipper asked.

“His blast missed,” Warner said. “But it did manage to take out most of the life on Earth at the time.”

“Earth was pretty boring for a while after that,” Bill said. “I guess a few of the hardier beasts were lucky and got sucked into the portals.”

“You were sloppy and failed to shred them along with everything else your stole,” Warner said. “Now that the path is open again, they are finding ways to escape back into reality.”

Dipper tried to breathe normally, but the weight of the truth was sitting on his lungs. Bill had been building up to something that could have destroyed human life. Dipper had _helped him_ build up to that. He felt like he was going to be sick.

“Why did you have to get me involved?” he demanded.

“As incorporeal beings, we actually don’t have much power over reality,” Bill said. “I needed someone with a physical body to spread the portals for me. I got some guy to lay down the first one for me, but I needed someone who would stand by to the bitter end to keep spreading them out. And how could I have refused you, Pine Tree, when you practically came begging me for the job?”

Dipper wanted to scream.

“Dipper Pines,” Warner said. “Much has gone wrong, I understand. Your attempts to save your home have only put it further in harm’s way. However, it is not too late to fix this. You still have time to close the remaining portals.”

“You honestly think Bill will let me do that while he’s still got my mouth?” Dipper asked.

“Of course not,” Warner said. “Bill Cipher, as I have come to know him, is a ferociously stubborn individual. My suggestion would be to separate yourselves.”

“But we don’t know how to do that!” Dipper cried. Then he paused, and another realization clicked in his mind. “He’s been lying about that, too, hasn’t he?”

Warner bobbed up and down, in what Dipper assumed was a nod. “The magic that binds you is a very simple spell, hardly worth making such a fuss over. Even if Bill didn’t know the exact spell designed to reverse the effects of this one, he could have devised such a way to go about it by now.”

“You’re giving me too much credit here,” Bill said, shrugging. “I wouldn’t know how to build the thing by myself. Never really got interested in spellcrafting when I could pretty much get humans to do whatever I wanted.”

“But you know the spell,” Dipper said. Bill shrugged.

“The guy worked so hard to make sure that I would never come across his work. He built his study without any triangles, just to make sure that my symbol would never get to him. Poor guy had no idea that the pages of his journals were made with a tree that had born my symbol. It was like he was handwriting personal letters to me.”

“And one of those letters told you how to reverse the effects of the first spell,” Dipper said. Bill didn’t respond, but the silence was proof enough. “But it still doesn’t do me much good. I mean, Bill’s not going to be the one to tell me how to do it.”

“In games between demons,” Warner said, starting a slow descent downwards, “that which your opponent will not give you, you are at liberty to steal.”

“You want me to steal something from Bill’s mind?” Dipper asked. “Like the time he tried to get the safe code from Grunkle Stan?”

Bill squinted their eyes. “What do you think you’re doing, Warner?”

“Dipper Pines, when I created you and your sister, I had a feeling that one of you would run into Bill one day. When that day came, I wanted you to be prepared, so I left with you a small piece of my power. On you, it manifested itself on your forehead.” Dipper couldn’t reach up to feel his birthmark, but he could feel the skin around it starting to heat up. Bill, feeling the same, touched the constellation and then yanked back the hand with a hiss. Heat was pouring off of the mark, and Dipper could feel his fingers stinging from the contact.

“That power is enough to get you where you need to go. Are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” Dipper said. His birthmark continued to glow, hotter and brighter with each passing second. At the edge of his vision, he could see that the forest was starting to dissolve. The white expanse was slowly turning black.

A triangular door opened up behind Warner. When Dipper looked through, he thought he saw stars. Another universe had opened up before him, the massive expanse not done justice by the little doorway. He stepped forward towards it, and as he did his arms started to attack him. They scratched and hit and jabbed, trying everything to dissuade him from the door.

“You can’t do this, Warner!” Bill yelled over their shoulder. “This is such a cheap trick! You are a shame on life demons!”

“The sorrowful thing about fighting a demon of chaos is that they know no rules,” Warner told Dipper. “They will do as they please until all of their resources are dried. Demons of order, on the other hand, know the rules well. That is why, when push comes to shove, we are so good at bending them.”

“Yeah,” Dipper said. He stopped and turned just before he stepped through the door. “I know that this is all about the weird game you’re playing with Bill, and that you probably wouldn’t have ever bothered helping me if he hadn’t been involved, but thanks. I’m glad that I can finally make things right.” Then, he stepped forward and tumbled into the empty expanse, letting the door close behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure how I feel about this chapter, but it is what it is! A lot of stuff was revealed, but there's still a lot left to uncover, and a whole lot to do before Dipper can find some way out of this whole mess.
> 
> We're right about halfway through the story now, thanks to everyone who has read, kudo'd, and commented! I love writing this, and it's so much fun to get to do it for other people!
> 
> I'm going to be traveling again next week. There is a 99% chance that I will have internet connection on Friday, but in case I don't, Chapter 7 will be out some time over the weekend.


	7. Risking a Life by Protecting It

Bill was dreaming. Dipper had a feeling that such a thing was a much bigger deal than he could currently comprehend.

He must have blacked out at some point, because he couldn’t quite remember how he had gotten to wherever he was. He had stepped through the door and started to fall, with Bill still clawing at him, and now he was here, hovering in a blue sky far above a great expanse of green. He was pretty sure that there had been some sort of fight along the way, although he wasn’t sure whether he had been fighting with Bill or alongside him. It was possibly both. Much like any other dream Dipper had ever had, he couldn’t quite remember how this one had started.

Also like his recent dreams, he was no longer stuck in the same body as Bill. Dipper had a vague memory of them splitting up some time before he got to this place, but again, he couldn’t remember how. Now that he looked around at his rather odd surroundings, he got the sense that Bill was somewhere in the expanse below him, searching for the exact same thing that Dipper was after. He paused, trying to remember exactly what that had been.

Right! The reversal spell. Somewhere in Bill’s mind was a memory of the spell that would free them from each other. If Dipper found it, then he could finally separate himself from the demon and start actually working towards saving Gravity Falls. Of course, if Bill found it, there was no telling what the demon would do with the memory.

Despite his endless curiosity about the supernatural, Dipper couldn’t afford himself the luxury of figuring out what Bill was planning. He had to find the memory first. He knew that the memory was somewhere far below him, so he angled himself so that his feet faced the ground. Then, he dropped.

The fall was surprisingly quick, and in no time at all he landed, painlessly, in the middle of a giant hedge maze. The walls rose high above his head, although he knew from his experience in the sky that there was nothing much to see. Even if he could see a top-down view of the maze, it was so huge that he doubted it was be of much benefit to him.

Besides the hedges, there were also a few stone decorations breaking into the walls. Some were simple, lonely columns that rose to meet empty air. Others were large sculptures of figures that Dipper didn’t quite understand. Both caused Dipper’s spine to tingle in an unpleasant way, and he had the distinct impression of being watched whenever he turned his back on one.

“So where do I go from here?” he asked, and felt a little bit surprised when no snarky voice immediately answered him; he had been so ready to ignore Bill that his thoughts ground to a halt for a moment when nothing was actually said. He knew that going in a random direction was sure to get him lost. Even the dream of a demon of chaos had to have some semblance of order to it, and he could figure out what that order was, he could find his way to the memory without a problem. That was the method he had used to solve every mystery of Gravity Falls so far, and it hadn’t failed him yet.

There was always the left hand trick to start with. Dipper raised his left hand and touched the green wall beside him. He was surprised at how warm it felt under his fingers. Curious, he peered closely at the leaves and was surprised to find light shining off of their undersides. His curiosity now piqued, he flipped one over and found himself gazing into a galaxy. It was small of course, entirely visible on a leaf the size of Dipper’s hand, but it glowed and turned gently before his eyes, enchanting him for a moment as he gazed at the flicking lights within. He flipped over another leaf, and this one played a scene of a meteor smashing into an unsuspecting planet. Dipper watched it loop over and over before he grabbed the next.

He was surprised to see his own face this time, a bit younger maybe but overall the same person. His younger self said something he couldn’t understand, and then the view shifted to look down at a portal that had ripped open just below. A pair of skinny black legs kicked uselessly at it before the scene rewound and played out again. Despite the altered viewpoint, Dipper immediately recognized it as his first encounter with Bill, when they had fought him to protect Stan’s safe code from Gideon. 

“These are Bill’s memories,” he said to himself in wonder, flipping over several more. Each leaf revealed something different: supernovas, black holes, asteroids. Some were bizarre jumbles of shapes and colors that Dipper couldn’t understand, and many were of interactions with creatures the likes of which Dipper couldn’t have imagined. Very few were of Earth, and even rarer did one include a human.

“That does make sense, though,” Dipper said. “Bill’s literally as old as the universe. Most of his memories would have been from before Earth and humans were around.” He was really transfixed by the different images and wanted to keep exploring, but then he saw a flash of gold zoom by on the other side of the hedge. Bill was still searching, and Dipper needed to as well.

There was still the problem of how he was supposed to find the one memory, though. Now that he knew that every leaf in the giant maze was a single memory, the task seemed even more daunting that before. Searching every single leaf would take an impossibly long time, especially with the speed Bill seemed to be traveling at.

Now that Dipper thought about it though, it was strange for Bill to be going as fast as he was. Even if Bill knew his own memories already, he had to be searching the leaves to figure out exactly which one bore the memory of the spell so that he could prevent Dipper from finding it. He had to be using his demon powers, then, to be checking the leaves as he went along.

Only, this was a dream, and in dreams, anything was possible. Dipper wanted to berate himself for not figuring it out sooner, but there was really no time. He concentrated on the dream around him, trying to figure out the best way to bend it to his will. Focusing hard, he made every leaf around him lift up at once, revealing countless moving pictures of space and the mindscape. None of them bore any sort of journal page, but it was a start.

Taking a page out of Bill’s book, he started to run down the row, flipping up all of the leaves as he went. It was hard to keep track of them all, and he frequently stopped when one that looked like something from Earth popped up. Since most of them were of deep space, it was surprisingly easy to distinguish those that involved any sort of contact with humans, and he happily used it to his advantage.

He ran and ran, turning sharp corners and occasionally passing by the strange stone decorations. They looked almost like animals, but were often distorted somehow, with missing jaws or elongated limbs. They shot a chill up his spine, but at the same time he was curious about whether they were based on anything real. From what Dipper had seen of the strange creatures stored in Bill’s memories already, he wouldn’t have doubted the possibility of it. There was no time to stop and look for a long time, although he did notice that they became more numerous as he ran along, no matter which direction he ran in. Even when he had to double back and do down paths he had already been on, he swore that new statues popped up, all with blank eyes that seemed to be wide in horror.

He wasn’t sure that he saw it coming when he nearly walked into a gazebo. It wasn’t an odd thing to find in the middle of a hedge maze, but it was still weird to find something other than hedges for the first time, and he stepped back to get a better look at the thing. As he did so, a spot of gold caught his eye, and he shrank away before creeping closer to inspect it.

A golden triangle floated in the middle of the structure. It was sort of like Bill, but not exactly. The points were rounder, and it had shorter arms and legs. It was turning in a slow circle, and as it turned towards Dipper, he could see that its pupil was much more circular than Bill’s snake eye, although it was still far from human. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to notice him as its gaze drifted past, and his curiosity pushed him to walk up the steps of the gazebo and get closer to the thing.

It wasn’t until Dipper was standing right in front of it that the triangle finally looked up at him. It didn’t say anything for a moment, and Dipper had to wonder if it even knew how to talk. He guessed that Bill had created it to help him hunt down the memory, but it wasn’t clear what function it was serving while spinning around listlessly in a gazebo.

“Uh, hi,” he said. “I’m Dipper. But, uh, you probably know that already.”

“Pine Tree.” Its voice was sort of like Bill’s, but more robotic, like one of those preprogrammed ones that came on computers. It continued to stare at him, its spinning briefly paused.

“Do you know where Bill is right now?” Dipper asked. He wasn’t sure that talking to this thing was a good idea, but this was the first thing he’d really seen that wasn’t hedges. At the very least, a break from the norm offered a chance to find clues towards the whereabouts of the missing memory.

“Here,” the triangle said, and Dipper froze before it had a chance to go on. “This is Bill’s dream. Everything is Bill.”

“Right. Uh, good point, I guess.” Dipper scratched the back of his neck. He felt the need to make polite conversation, but he had a feeling that this thing truly didn’t care whether he was polite or not. It was entirely off-putting. “Why were you spinning like that just now?” he asked.

“I am to find the journal entry and dispose of it,” the triangle said.

Well, that confirmed what Dipper had already guessed, at least. “Okay, but what were you actually doing just now?”

“Choosing which way to go next.”

For the first time, Dipper looked around them. All the way around the gazebo, different paths broke into the maze. When he counted, there were 12 different entrances, and none looked any different from the others. Just tall hedges with gravel paths that eventually turned out of sight at some point.

“Do you know the difference between them?” he asked. It was a long shot, for sure, to ask Bill’s minion to help him solve the maze, but the thing had been pretty relaxed so far. Even if it did decide Dipper had gone too far, he could just whip up an eye laser and be done with the thing. Probably.

“No,” it said. Dipper hadn’t considered that possibility.

“I mean, _is_ there a difference between them?” he pushed.

“No.”

“Seriously?” Dipper turned away from the triangle and gazed into the hedges, settling himself down on the steps of the gazebo. Now that he knew what was hidden just under the leaves, he could see a gentle glow emanating from the plants, and a whisper of noise from the combined soundtracks of each memory. He felt a rush of gratitude that the dream was taking place during the day, as he had a feeling that it would get a lot creepier here at night. “Is it actually possible to find this thing? Am I just going to have to keep searching this place for all of eternity?”

“No,” the triangle said. “Searching will do no good.”

“Awesome,” Dipper said, flopping onto his back. He landed painfully on the wood floor, but he didn’t care enough to worry about the pain. “So I’m stuck here, then? Forced to wander the place forever, searching for a memory that can’t actually be found?”

“It can be found.”

Dipper continued to lie on the floor, turning his head slightly upward so that the edge of teh triangle finally came into view. “Wait, but you said searching won’t help. How do I find it if I don’t search through Bill’s memories?”

“Some other way,” the triangle droned. It had returned to spinning in its slow circle, its eye scanning over the hedges thoughtlessly.

“Okay, how is _Bill_ going to find it, then?” Dipper pressed. He pushed himself back into a sitting position, suddenly very aware of how much time he was wasting just hanging out with this thing. He wanted to get a move on, but at the same time he truly believed that he could get some information out of the triangle, and he needed at least to try before he gave up on it completely.

“Some other way.”

“Incredible.” Dipper stood up from his place on the step and walked away from the gazebo. Before wandering back into the maze, he turned around to look at the little triangle again. “Thanks, I guess.” The triangle didn’t respond, so Dipper dove into the hedges, this time jogging down the path rather than sprinting.

There had to be some secret to this place, some code to crack that Dipper just wasn’t seeing. He continued to flip over the leaves as he walked, even though at this point he knew it was useless. Bill’s memories were practically infinite, meaning that the chance of finding one specific memory was nonexistent. He’d been a little bit hopeful when he first started the search, but after his conversation with Bill’s clone, most of that hope had been worn away. Now, he just wanted to find the memory and get out of this maze.

For a little while, he shoes crunching on gravel was the only sound he heard, and it covered up the hum of electricity until the source was directly behind him. He turned slowly, worried about making any sudden movements, and was surprised to find that the little triangle had followed him. It floated about a foot off the ground, its black limbs hanging limply and nearly brushing the gravel.

“Are you here to spy on me?” Dipper asked.

“No,” the little triangle said, and Dipper rolled his eyes. Having no company would probably have been better than trying to force conversation with this thing. It floated up to him until they were side by side, then stayed right by him as he started walking again. Just to test, he broke into a quick sprint, and the triangle had no trouble staying at his side. Apparently, it didn’t plan to leave him any time soon.

“Is there a reason you’re following me?” he asked. He was a little bit ticked off, although mostly with himself for allowing a small, silent triangle to distract him from his goal. The thing wasn’t even saying anything, but its presence kept poking at his mind and made it difficult to concentrate.

“You are an anomaly,” the triangle said, and Dipper found himself at a loss for words after that.

So he continued to march along the path, the triangle acting as his companion. Dipper continued to scan the memories around him, but he didn’t look very closely at any of them. Really, he was hoping that they would reveal some clue to solving the maze, a key that would help him figure out the secret. Unfortunately, as far as he could tell, the memories were assorted randomly, growing together without any regard for the time or place that they were from.

“But that kind of makes sense, doesn’t it?” Dipper said, stopping short. The little triangle stopped as well, but didn’t take its eyes off of the path ahead. “Warner said that Bill is a demon of chaos, and that he hates demons of order. All of Bill’s power comes from disorder.” He gazed around the nearby leaves again, watching planets and explode and stars be born. “Maybe I’ve been looking for the wrong thing this whole time.”

“Most likely,” the triangle said.

Dipper could have sung. Something finally made sense about this place, even if that something was that this place made no sense. The absence of a pattern was the clue to figuring out the puzzle. As the piece slid into place, Dipper’s mind opened to the possibilities.

“I’m never going to solve this maze, right?” he asked the triangle.

“No.”

“But there still has to be a reason for it being here. I mean, Bill wouldn’t be searching through this place if there was no point to it. So maybe I should just try…” He lifted up off the ground and hovered just above the hedges. The Bill clone followed him up, stopping just below his feet and watching for Dipper’s next move.

From here, Dipper could see that the maze continued towards a distant horizon, becoming a green blur some time before that. Dipper started to float forward, gazing around himself.

“Warner said something about this, didn’t he? Dream demons play without rules. Trying to solve the maze is playing by the rules. Even if I flipped over all of the leaves at once, that’s still only bending them a bit. So, if I’m going to play with no rules…”

He blinked, and the shape of the world changed in front of him. Although the horizon seemed the same, the ground directly in front of him turned sharply down at a right angle, revealing turning passages made up of more hedges. Dipper had effectively turned it from a 2D maze to a 3D one. He dove down into it, exploring the new dimension. Although it was a bit more confusing to explore a 3D maze, he made it work. In a dream, at least, he had some control over what it felt like to fly.

Even doing this, though, he knew that he was still following a set of rules. He had changed the form of the playing field, but in doing so had only created his own game, with his own set of rules. If the change had affected the entire dream, then that meant that Bill was now following those rules as well, and he would probably figure out the secret soon enough, if he hadn’t already. Realizing this, Dipper did the first thing he could think of and shot straight through the nearest hedge.

It tickled a bit as he felt the think leaves pass through him, but otherwise he popped out the other side unharmed. The smaller Bill bumped into his foot, and Dipper turned back to look at the thing, having briefly forgotten about its existence. Where there had once been a round, black pupil, its eye was now blue, and it seemed to be emitting the sound of a pencil going through a classroom pencil sharpener. A moment later, the black pupil rolled forward again, and it stared at Dipper as though nothing had happened.

“You okay?” Dipper asked.

“Yes.”

Dipper sighed and turned away. Slowly at first, then faster, he started to float forward, going straight through the hedges without bothering to pay attention to actual barriers. He was surprised that he hadn’t thought of this sooner, just popping straight through the walls instead of all of the pointless wandering around. Dreaming did kind of force the dreamer to conform to weird logic at first. By breaking that logic, he was starting to break through Bill’s abilities, and hopefully that was bringing him closer to the memory he was searching for. Hopefully.

With each wall he passed through, the scene changed a bit, although never in any constant way. Sometimes the sky turned to more of an evening gray, or the space was filled with a bright white light. He briefly flashed past hedges covered in bright pink flowers or statues of fish walking on their tails. At one point, he popped into the space just long enough to hear a creature screaming before he vanished into the wall again, and when he returned, the noise was gone. The entire time, he kept to a straight line, and only stopped when he entered a long, straight corridor.

It wasn’t like any other space Dipper had encountered. He couldn’t see any turns up ahead, the path going so far into the distance that it seemed to dissolve from view. He started to move forward again, then took a moment to rethink the strategy.

“Would I be following the rules of the maze if I kept going straight down this way?” he asked the triangle, his annoyingly loyal companion.

“I do not know,” the triangle said. “We are discovering the rules of this place together.”

Dipper glanced up the row again. He was so curious at what lay at the end, but he didn’t want to go chasing something that might not exist, or even worse, be a trap. Instead, he turned, for the first time in several minutes, and went through the hedge to his left.

He popped out of the maze and found himself facing the gazebo.

“Back here again?” he muttered, looking around. In the distance, he could see some of the changes caused by the change to a 3D maze. However, the immediate area had remained the same: a gazebo in the middle of a circle of 12 entrances leading back into the maze. He was even pretty sure that he remembered the one he had gone through his first time here.

Curious to see if he could retrace his steps, Dipper stuck his head back through the hedge once again. Instead of the long corridor, however, he saw the twists and turns of the hedges he had first run through. Clearly, he had gone down a one-way street. Backing out again, he turned and looked at the gazebo. The triangle beside him was emitting pencil sharpener noises again, but when it was done, it drifted towards the building, stopping just shy of the stairs.

“You have returned,” it said. Dipper was surprised for a second. It was the first time that the thing had spoken without prompting from Dipper.

“Yeah, but not on purpose,” he said. “I just kind of got spat back out here.”

“A result of following the rules?”

“But I didn’t,” Dipper said. “I went through the wall again, exactly the same way I had been doing already.”

“Exactly the same?”

Dipper thought it over. No, he had changed his course slightly, but why would the maze care about that? So long as he avoided following the rules of the game, it shouldn’t have mattered, right? Unless…

“I changed what I was doing to make sure I broke the rules,” Dipper said. “And I guess, in doing so, I kind of acknowledged that the rules existed, and they still had an effect on me.” He rubbed his forehead. “I guess? So, if I ever find that place again, I should just keep going straight? Is that what I do?”

The triangle’s eye turned blue again, and the pencil sharpening came back, louder than before. It also lasted longer, and Dipper started to worry that he’d broken it before it finally snapped back to its neutral state again.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Does it… hurt when that happens?”

“No.”

Dipper wanted to press further, but he really didn’t have time to worry about the little dream clone of Bill that was tagging along with him. Instead, he turned back around to the hedges and dove back in again. He tried not to focus on each environment he passed through, instead noticing the way the air felt rushing past him or the warmth of the memories as he passed through them. After what felt like hours, but was likely only minutes, he burst back into the long corridor again, but this time he did not pause. He sped on, letting the hedges whip by him and he traveled further and further down the long path.

He was going so fast that when something finally came into view, he didn’t have time to slow down. He crashed into it and fell, skidding across the ground for several feet before finally rolling to a stop. He felt the rock dig deep into his knees and palms, but his wounds vanished before they had a chance to bleed. Dream powers were pretty cool like that.

Dipper stood up and turned around, just in time to see Bill pick himself up off the ground and brush himself off. The demon didn’t seem to have noticed Dipper yet, his focus instead stuck on the little triangle that had come to rest directly between them. Bill floated over to it and the two stared at each other for one long moment. Then, Bill clapped his hands, and the little triangle poofed into a pile of dust. Bill looked up at Dipper.

“Glad to finally have that thing out of my head. They’re good workers, but that sound sure gets annoying, doesn’t it?”

Dipper felt anger running into his cheeks, turning them pink when on the inside he felt red. He didn’t feel like having a conversation, and especially not with Bill. He turned his back on the demon and tried to continue his flight down the corridor, but an unseen force wrapped around his midsection and yanked him back towards Bill.

“We’ve got business, Pine Tree,” Bill said.

“No, Bill!” Dipper shouted. “I’m done with this! I’m done with deals; I’m done working with you. I’m ending it!”

“You might have tasted what it’s like to be a demon, but you forget that I am still the master of the mindscape,” Bill said. The grip on Dipper stomach gave another sharp tug and forced him to turn and face the demon. Bill batted his eyelashes at him, and it made Dipper’s stomach coil in disgust. Now that he looked into the slit pupil again, he wondered how he could have let himself trust the slimy creature. “If I say we need to talk, then we’re going to talk Pine Tree.”

“No!” Dipper rocked his legs up and landed a square kick right in Bill’s face. Using the demon as a platform, he kicked off and rocketed up the path, towards an end that he could not see. He knew that whatever lay at the end of the corridor would lead him to where he needed to be, if only he could reach it.

Out of nowhere, a blue flame sprang up in front of him, arching high above the walls of the maze. Dipper skidded to a stop just before he hit it, feeling the heat fill the air. The hedges on either side seemed to lean away from the fire, but the leaves didn’t burn, even as the flames licked and caressed them. Bill’s voice floated forward from not far behind, casual in a way that made Dipper want to hit something. Preferably Bill.

“You were so polite when we were visiting Warner, why can’t you do the same for me?” Bill said, spinning his cane as he approached. Dipper tried to think of a quick way to get rid of the flames, but the force clamped his mouth shut before he could do anything substantial. “Really, Pine Tree, this is sad. Every time I think you might do something interesting and surprise me, you always end up going for the most obvious answer. It gets boring after a while.”

“Save it, Bill,” Dipper spat. “Whatever you’re trying to do won’t work. I don’t care what you have to say about any of this.”

“I know that,” Bill said. “I’m not an idiot, Pine Tree.” He ignored the small mutters Dipper made under his breath. “As soon as Warner started to tell you everything, I knew that it was too late for me to save our little partnership.”

“We weren’t partners. You used me like a puppet.”

“Our business relationship,” Bill said, correcting himself. “Given the circumstances, it would be difficult for us to rebuild what we had before.”

“We didn’t have anything!” Dipper cried. “You tricked me, end of story! There was never any partnership, just you poisoning the town.”

“Will you please let me finish?” Bill said, his eye briefly turning an intense shade of orange. Something clamped down on Dipper’s mouth again, so he settled for wiggling feebly against whatever invisible thing bound him in one spot. “Good. Due to Warner’s interference, it is now impossible for us to resume our previous engagement. I admit that I made some mistakes. The biggest was definitely letting you anywhere near Warner’s dimension, that one was definitely on me. You did, too, though. Taking his advice and breaking into my dreams was definitely not a high point for you. Luckily, I am a benevolent demon and will overlook that little transgression, so long as you accept my terms.

“What terms, you ask? An excellent question, my mute little audience!” Bill gave him a pat on the head. “I would like to propose a new deal, Pine Tree. I forget about this whole thing, and in return you let me stick around in the meat suit for a little bit longer. Not forever, of course, because we both know that’s not actually necessary. Just for a little while. Sound good?”

The hold on Dipper mouth released. “As if!” Dipper spat, a couple drops of spittle flying out of his mouth. “You don’t honestly think I would _ever_ let you take my body again? After all of the mess you already caused?”

Bill sighed and swayed left to right. Dipper guessed that it was his imitation of shaking his head. “So belligerent, Pine Tree. Doesn’t it get exhausting?” He straightened up and stared Dipper in the eye. “Are you sure you wouldn’t want to drop the grudge of an immortal dream demon?”

“I honestly don’t care what you think of me,” Dipper said, and he was surprised how forced it sound. Still, anger and hurt were enough to drive him on. “You can hold a grudge for as long as you like. Come after me again, even! I’ve beaten you before, Bill, and I can do it a thousand more times.”

Bill straightened up and stared into Dipper’s eyes. “Fine. I was hoping you wouldn’t bring it to this, but it’s clear that my good will simply isn’t enough these days. In return for letting me bunk with you for a couple more weeks, I’ll lend my power to help protect Gravity Falls. No tricks, no secret plans. I’ll help clean up everything that I started.”

Dipper stared at Bill. His mind absorbed the words slowly, taking them in and digesting them one by one. He repeated them in his mind, searched for some double meaning. He couldn’t believe that Bill had just said those words, but there was no way he had heard wrong, and no way he had interpreted the words incorrectly. Bill had said exactly what Dipper thought he had, and it took him a moment just to formulate any sort of response.

“Do you honestly think I’m an idiot?” he asked, more dumbstruck than angry at this point. Bill’s eye went wide, and the hand that had been spinning his cane stopped. “I mean, fool me twice, shame on me, but try to fool me _three times_? Why would you even offer that? It’s like you only know one move and you’re just spamming it because you never bothered with learning how to actually play the game.”

“I, uh…” Bill stuttered.

“No, but really, why would you expect that to work? I mean, even if we hadn’t gone through that whole mess with Mabel’s puppet show, you literally offered to help me save the town a week ago. You couldn’t even be bothered to come up with something slightly original? If you had offered, I don’t know, to protect Mabel from harm forever, at least I could have had some sort of moral dilemma. But this? I kind of expected something more interesting.”

“Stop it!” Bill tried to look threatening, puffing himself up a bit, but he failed to capture the red glow that usually accompanied his anger. Dipper found that a yellow triangle didn’t get a whole lot scarier by becoming a slightly larger triangle. Bill relaxed and returned to spinning his cane. “Pine Tree, I get the sense that you don’t trust me, and I suppose that humans would consider this a logical outcome. However, it is unwarranted. I can assure you that I am telling the truth this time.”

“Is this another game of yours?” Dipper asked. “Oh my god, one of your minions is finding the memory right now, aren’t they? Meanwhile I’m stuck here having this stupid conversation with you. Brilliant plan, you’re truly the evil genius all the cults have been waiting for.” He started squirming again, trying to find some way to free himself from the invisible entrapment.

“No, Pine Tree– stop that, if you would just– will you _stop_ –“ Dipper resisted Bill’s every effort to get him to pause his efforts, and the demon seemed to be flicking between flustered and frustrated. “I don’t understand! I told the truth back in Warner’s dimension, so now there are no more lies between us. Isn’t that grounds for you to trust me?”

Dipper stared, slack-jawed, at the floating yellow triangle. His next words came slowly, each one trying to convey something that Dipper wasn’t sure Bill could comprehend.

“You lied to me,” he said. “You made me hurt Gravity Falls when I thought I was saving it. In doing that, you hurt me. I’m not sure how much trust I ever had in you, but you broke it when you failed to tell me the truth sooner. So: No, Bill. I don’t trust you, so I’m not making another deal with you.”

Bill stared at him, and Dipper felt the force binding him loosen, just a little bit. It was enough, though.

He forced himself free and nearly laughed in celebration when his feet hit the ground. The victory was short-lived, however, as Bill immediately snapped out of his thoughts and turned his gaze down towards Dipper, his yellow body turning red hot and his eye seeming to burn with rage. Dipper didn’t have time to think through a plan. His arms were just starting to lock to his sides when he focused his mind on the first nightmare he could think of.

The caterpillar popped into existence, filling the space between Dipper and Bill. Unlike the last time they had seen it, this one was covered in its deadly white spines, and it let out a shrill shriek as soon as it saw Bill. Dipper was released immediately, but he hardly noticed. He was too focused on Bill, who had turned a pastel yellow and almost seemed to be trembling at the sight of the creature. A moment later, he turned and fled down the maze, the beast not far behind.

Dipper hadn’t expected such a strong reaction, but he didn’t have time to think about it much. No matter how Bill felt about his distraction, that was really all it was, and sooner or later he would return his attention to forcing Dipper into a deal. Dipper had to find the spell before that happened, or else he might literally never escape this place.

So he ran, and he tried not to think about the look on Bill’s face. The expression of terror that better suited a child confronted with a terrible beast, not an immortal semi-omniscient being that had defeated such a creature not long ago. A semi-omniscient being that had forced Dipper to spread the seeds of destruction around the place he loved. A demon that had summoned creatures that put Mabel’s life in danger.

He had to keep everything in perspective. No matter what had happened in the past, this was what he had to learn to deal with in the present. Bill was a jerk, and would always be a jerk. End of story.

He continued his flight down the corridor, doing his best to ignore his thoughts even as they pelted him. He had so many other things to be worrying about, such as where he was even going. So far as he could tell, the walls to either side of him hadn’t changed, and the way ahead was becoming no clearer. He should have figured out where Bill had come from when they ran into each other, but there hadn’t been a good chance. By now, anyway, Bill was far behind him, and any chance he’d had to press the demon for information had long passed.

“This is stupid,” he said suddenly, grinding to a halt. No matter how far he got, he was still practically going nowhere. He had been hopeful that the memory would show itself eventually, or maybe present him with some new puzzle to solve, but he had been running for a stupidly long time and so far hadn’t found anything.

Well, there had been one thing, of course.

He groaned, turned around, and ran back, just hopeful that he hadn’t completely messed up and missed his chance yet.

Despite the long time he had spent running in the opposite direction, Dipper only had to run a few feet before he saw the caterpillar again, with Bill somewhere behind it, shielded from view by the tufts of tall spines along the creature’s back. The caterpillar had started swinging its head, and Dipper knew he only had seconds to react before its deadly spines filled the air. Because they where in a dream, he had the feeling that the consequences wouldn’t have been quite so severe as they had been in reality, but he didn’t want to take any chances. Just before the caterpillar could fire, Dipper wave his hand in front of it and erased it from the world.

Bill appeared on the other side, both of his hands raised with blue flames sitting in his palms. He blinked in surprise when the monster vanished, and he and Dipper stared at each other for a moment. Dipper was almost afraid that whatever attack Bill had been planning was going to be aimed at him next, but then Bill put out his flames and floated gently forward.

“So,” he said, “have you reconsidered my offer?”

“No,” Dipper said. “You’re not getting my body again, plain and simple.”

“You say ‘again’,” Bill said. “Pine Tree, there is no ‘again’ here. In the physical world, I’m still stuck in your body. That doesn’t change just because we’re separate in here.”

“Fine,” Dipper said. “Then I have a counteroffer for you. You get out of my body, and I’ll–”

“Denied.”

Dipper’s mouth hung open for a moment, the words dying on his tongue. “What? You didn’t even hear what I’m offering!”

“I realize that, Pine Tree,” Bill said. “Two things: Number one, there is nothing in any universe that you could offer me that I would have any interest in. Two, you need me if you want to protect your little town. Getting rid of me would be a waste of time for both of us.”

“Seriously? Not this again.” Dipper took a few long strides so that he came within arm’s reach of Bill. The demon was floating slightly above him, so he had to look up to stare him in the eye, but he did his best to puff out his chest and ignore the height difference. “I don’t know how many times I’ll have to say it before you understand: I don’t want your help. I want my body back.”

“It’s not a matter of _wanting_ , Pine Tree,” Bill said, and it struck Dipper that maybe pushing this hard wasn’t the best plan. He wasn’t certain, but it seemed that Bill had turned a light shade of orange. “Forget about pathetic human emotions for a moment, and try to wrap your limited mind around a simple concept: you need me to save your town, and I need a physical vessel to protect myself for a little while. What we want doesn’t matter right now.”

Bill had rushed through his words a little bit, but Dipper still caught on one word. “What do you mean, you need to protect yourself?”

Bill looked away, and Dipper wasn’t sure, but the demon almost looked embarrassed. “Warner knows where I am now,” he said. “If I was fully powered up, I wouldn’t have a problem defending myself against him. However, things have changed, so now my best bet is to hide out in reality for a little while until he gets distracted by something else.” The demon peered over at Dipper, and the sly look shooed away any thoughts Dipper had of Bill being embarrassed of the situation.

“Those are risks that I’m going to have to take, Bill,” he said. “If I can find a way to fix this mess on my own, then I’m sure you can get yourself out of trouble.”

Bill growled and loomed closer. Dipper felt the urge to run, but he forced himself to hold his ground.

“Why don’t you seem to grasp it?” Bill asked. “You _can’t_ fix this on your own! Without my power, it’s not possible for one human to get rid of all the portals.”

They stared at each other for a very long moment. There was no wind to rustle the leaves around them, so silence settled in the world, save for Dipper’s breathing and a light hum of electricity coming from within Bill.

“You’re probably right about that,” Dipper said. “There’s a lot that I can’t do by myself, and it’s stupid for me to try.”

“Now you’re getting it,” Bill said, but Dipper ignored him.

“Just because I’m the only person controlling my body, though, doesn’t mean I’m alone,” Dipper continued. Understanding was coloring his vision now, as pieces fell into place that he had never acknowledged before. “Out there, I have friends who would do anything for me. I know people who are strong and brave, and probably way more capable at this stuff than I am.”

“Great, Pine Tree, you have friends,” Bill said. “But it doesn’t change the fact that without me, you’re still just one little human.”

“But my friends are more than just humans,” Dipper said. “They can do all of the same things I could, even when I had a dream demon helping me out. Heck, they could probably do a better job than either of us did.” His eyes dropped to the gravel path. “I didn’t let them, though, because I was trying so hard to protect them. They wanted to help, but I shoved them away because I got this stupid idea in my head that I was the only one who could protect Gravity Falls.” He took a deep breath and turned away a hair. The image of Mabel surrounded by spiderwebs was burning hot in his mind. “By trying to keep them out of danger, I probably risked all of their lives.”

And then he swung. He didn’t know what was going to happen when he made contact, but he felt that this was the right thing to do. After all of the times he had had to slap himself in the face to get Bill’s attention, it just felt right to return the favor.

Instead of hitting anything solid, Dipper’s hand went through the triangle and he dove forward, so that his arm was elbow deep in a being of pure energy. Bill, speechless, watched as Dipper felt through the bizarre space. The feeling was constantly switching between searing heat and horrible cold, and he almost missed it when his fingers felt over a piece of paper.

He withdrew his arm and looked at the object in his fist. It was a journal page, covered in words that were unmistakably Latin. The reversal spell.

Bill, who had been shocked to stillness at the rude intrusion, now grew monstrously huge, red flames erupting from his triangular body as he reached down towards Dipper.

“ _Pine Tree!_ ” he bellowed, shaking the ground.

Dipper did the first think he could think of and dropped through the floor. Immediately, he found himself in front of the gazebo again. In the distance, he heard the roar of a furious dream demon.

There wasn’t much time. Dipper looked down at the paper in his hands, trying to memorize it in one go. He checked over the notes that the spellcrafter had written for himself, and was able to verify that the spell would remove a demon trapped by the soul binding spell. The answer to everything lay right in his hand, and he really wanted a moment to celebrate.

The moment would have to wait, as he watched the sky turn black. In the distance, he saw a red glow, turning brighter with Bill’s fast approach.

“I have to wake up,” Dipper said to himself. It was no good. “Seriously, right now would be a really good time to be awake!” Still nothing, and he could just see the top of Bill’s hat as it sped straight towards him. Apparently, the demon had also stopped worrying about boundaries.

“Wake up! Please, wake up now!” he begged. And then he did.

 

* * *

 

Dipper woke up with a gasp, his senses crashing together with such force that his head seemed to ring with the weight of it. It took him a moment to discern that he was back in Norma Inchfield’s shack. The portal was gone, the only evidence of its existence being a few objects still lying on the ground. Dipper sat up quickly, his mind surprisingly clear for one who had just woken up. He needed to start the spell right away.

He stood up, using his foot to trace the required symbol in the mud the made up the floor of the shack. It was far from perfect, but he didn’t have time to be careful.

“Abire irruísse spiritu,” he started. Unlike the portal closing ritual, when energy would build up and light his insides on fire, this spell made him feel lighter. He almost felt that his feet were lifting off the ground, and it distracted him for just a moment too long.

“ _Pine Tree_ ,” he voice growled, and then his arms were grabbing his leg, trying to force him to stop drawing. “I am trying to _help you_ , and you’re making it very difficult for me!”

“Relinquere corpus,” he continued, rushing the words a bit, “meum.” His perception of the shack itself was growing foggy, but the symbol he was drawing became crystal clear in front of him. His eyes saw not rushed squiggles in the mud, but a solid black line, painted in ink.

“I’ve made mistakes, Pine Tree,” his voice said, although the interruption did nothing to slow the effects of the spell. “I get that. But you know, so have you. I mean, what were you even thinking, trusting the word of a demon?”

“Relinquat in mentem mihi!” Dipper nearly shouted the words. He could feel his heart beating hard and fast in his chest, but beside it, something else. A dark pulse of energy that burned his insides. The pain spread quickly, blossoming in his right eye and flowing up his arms.

He didn’t have time to yelp when his hands reached up and grabbed his neck.

Dipper fell backwards, away from the drawing, for a moment shocked at the pressure mounting on his windpipe. Something buried inside, some sort of primal instinct, took over, and he thrashed around, trying to find some way to get his hands to let go. He kicked up and rolled over, he tried to bite at his arms, but none of it was effective. His lungs screamed for air that he could not find.

He started to see spots, and for a moment he stopped thinking about the ritual and his duty to Gravity Falls, and instead his mind brought up a picture of Mabel. He would never get a chance to tell her how much he needed her, and tingle of fear mixed with melancholy rose up from his belly.

His hands relaxed their grip.

“Ego recludam me!” he cried. The symbol on the ground burst forth with yellow light, and Dipper really did feel himself rise an inch above the ground. The energy in his chest was roughly torn out, the pain in his arms following like bits of string hanging off a larger ball.

Then, the glow faded and he landed back on the ground. He lay there for a long minute, too scared to try anything out right away.

He tried moving his fingers, just a little. He twitched his pinky, and then grasped his whole hand. Slowly, he sat up and looked down at him arms. They responded to his every command, making no move to grab him once again. He felt around on he ground, and felt every bump clearly against his rough palms. Gently, he reached up to touch his face, and was surprised to find that his right eye was crying.

He stood up slowly, still slightly wary of his arms. Still, they made no move to attack, and he turned and stepped outside. The rain had stopped, and the sun shone down on the little shack through the trees. He could hear the creek nearby, babbling away, and far off in the distance birds were singing.

He breathed in deep, taking in the fresh, living scents of the forest. At long last, he had a moment to himself.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter _did not_ want to be written! I fought with it for a long time before I finally figured out where it was going and got it on track. Funny thing, this chapter ended up with almost the exact same word count as the first chapter. I almost went and edited it down so that they were precisely the same, but I didn't want to go searching through it again to find 60 words to get rid of. So, I'm settling for almost!
> 
> As always, thank you so much for reading! I'm truly amazed that we've made it this far! My first day of school is next Friday, but that shouldn't affect the update schedule at all. See you again for Chapter 8!


	8. The Moment When You Realize Your Life is Really Weird

Dipper didn’t remember losing consciousness, but he couldn’t think of any other reason he would be lying somewhere soft and warm, when he could have sworn that moments ago he was standing in the open air. He was aware that Mabel was very close by, right next to him even, and that she was talking. His head still wasn’t clear enough to understand her words, but they sounded important somehow.

He fought to wake up, forcing his eyes to open far too quickly and immediately shutting them again at the harsh light. He pulled his hands across his face and groaned, hopeful that his body would get the message and start working soon. There was a headache resting in the back of his skull, and he knew that it would set off as soon as he moved his head, but he tried not to let it discourage him from his goal.

“Mabel,” Dipper tried to say, but the name came out slurred and thick on his tongue. He felt a soft hand grab one of his own and squeeze, pulling it back down to lie on top of his stomach.

“I’m here,” she said, the first words that Dipper could actually understand. He cracked open his eyes again and could just see her outline, somehow made even more inviting by the harsh light surrounding it.

“Mabel,” he tried again, this time with greater success. He had to tell her about everything that had happened at Norma Inchfield’s shack. She needed to know what was going on. “I did it. I did it.”

He wasn’t sure that she understood, though, because all he got in response was a contented hum. He reached up again, trying to touch her shoulder, but misjudged the distance and allowed his arm to flop back onto his forehead. When he cracked his eyes open again, he could see Mabel’s features with greater clarity, and noted that she was wearing a small smile.

“Bill’s gone,” he said. “I did it.”

Mabel’s smile grew, displaying a look of pure, bountiful joy. “We figured,” she said, patting his hair gently. “Grunkle Stan checked your eyes to see if you fainted, and that’s when we noticed that your right eye is brown again. We weren’t sure, but… we were really hopeful”

A small woosh of air escaped Dipper’s lips. Any doubts he’d had before that the spell had worked now washed away. There was no way something that big would have changed if Bill weren’t really gone. He offered a small smile to his twin, then started to move to sit himself up.

“Woah, hey, slow down, Dippin’ Dot,” Mabel said, placing a firm hand on his chest. “You should rest for a while, still. I can go let everyone know that you’re okay, but you should stay here for now.”

“I can’t, Mabel,” he said, looking past her head to the room beyond. They weren’t in the Mystery Shack, he noticed. He was lying on a cream colored couch and Mabel was sitting on a glass coffee table right beside him. The walls were a gentle periwinkle, and… were those _sconces_?

“Where…”

“We’re in Pacifica’s guest house,” Mabel said, looking around the room with him at the expensive art and one-of-a-kind furniture pieces. “Her guards saw you wandering around yesterday, and they had already found you by the time we got over here. Pacifica’s parents didn’t want you in the main house, but they were nice enough to let us wait here until you woke up.”

The news that Pacifica had a whole extra house sitting on her property would have been more surprising to Dipper had he not been caught off guard by the other tidbit of information that Mabel mentioned.

“They saw me go into the woods _yesterday_? How long was I out?”

“We’re not sure,” Mabel said. “We were worried yesterday when the storm hit and we didn’t hear anything from you, but Grunkle Stan made us wait until it was dark out to start actually searching. Word must have gotten out that you were missing pretty fast, because the Northwests called a little later. They said that they had located you on their property, and that you were alive, but unconsious. You must have fainted before that, then, so at least a day, I guess?”

He’d missed a whole day already. A whole day that could have been spent making up for his mistake, and he had laid on a couch with his head on a feather pillow. Feelings of guilt started to worm into his chest, but he pushed them away with the reminder that he hadn’t had a choice in the matter. It wouldn’t do anyone any good for him to sit around and feel sorry for his actions. No, the best thing to do now was make them right.

Again, he pushed himself up and swung his legs over the side of the couch, and again Mabel held him still with a steady hand.

“Seriously, Dipper, you’ll want to wait,” she said, not moving her hand from its spot. “Everybody’s kind of been waiting for you to get up, and they might be kind of intense when you go out there. I really think it’d be better for you to wait a little bit until you’re really ready to get up.”

“I’m ready,” Dipper assured her. “I need to go talk to everyone, Mabel. It’s important.” The look on her face told him that such simple words were not going to be enough to convince her. Clearly, she wanted a real explanation, and although Dipper had the whole story sitting in his head, he had been hoping to have a little more time to rehearse it. From the firm hand still on his shoulder, though, he guessed that this would have to be his big debut.

“Before I fainted, I met this other demon named Warner,” he started slowly, picking up speed as he became more comfortable in the telling. “He was an alright guy, and he told me a lot about everything that’s been going on, including that,” he paused for a deep breath, “Bill tricked me into the whole thing. But Warner helped me get rid of bill, and he told m how to close the portals permanently.” He smiled, and it felt real. “Mabel, I can finally fix this!”

“And that is why you should definitely rest for a little bit longer,” Mabel said, shoving him back onto the pillow. In Dipper’s surprise, he flopped back onto the couch like a limp noodle. Mabel’s cheery expression broke a bit, revealing some of the worry that she had been trying so hard to hide. “Everybody’s kind of hoping that you have a solution,” she said, “but you’re not in great health to be saving the day right now. Can’t you just stay for a few more minutes?”

Dipper looked her hard in the eye and sighed. “To close the portals, you have to say the words ‘ _Ianuam claudet, ego clausitque mundi._ ’ That’s all it takes to prevent them from opening up again. When I was closing them with Bill, though, he added some extra to the ritual, which meant that we were making more of them instead of just closing them up.” He stood up from the couch, pushing past her hand this time. “I’m partially to blame for the problem getting as bad as it did. Everyone was counting on me, and I let them down. So now I have to try and make things right.”

Mabel didn’t fight him this time, instead standing up and skipping so that they could walk side by side. She still looked serious, but there was a little sparkle of hope in her eyes.

“You’re clearly going to be difficult about bedrest,” she said, “so I’m not going to fight for that anymore. But wherever you go, whatever you do, I’m going to help. You like this whole lone wolf guardian persona you’ve got going, but I’m still going to be there for you.”

Dipper could hardly reject her help. Now that he thought about it, that’s really all he had been doing all summer. If there was any way to start making things right, maybe this was it.

“Anyway, I like the sound of this Warner guy,” she said. “It’s kind of nice to know that Bill got a taste of his own medicine.”

“Definitely,” Dipper said. “I’m pretty sure the whole thing completely blindsided him. Something about how demons can’t predict what other demons are going to do. Looking back on it, I guess it was kind of cool that I got to see the whole thing unfold.” He stopped talking just as they reached the closed door. He could hear voices on the other side, although they were so muffled it was hard to judge how many people there were. For a moment, he wondered if they had somehow found out that he was to blame for the destruction of the town, but he pushed it away as ridiculous. Unless Warner regularly sucked people into his personal universe, it would have been impossible for them to find out.

Still, he took a deep breath and held the doorknob for several seconds before turning it and pushing through to the next room.

Dipper had almost expected the whole town to be waiting in the living room, so he was slightly disappointed at the turnout. That was not to say it was a small gathering, however. Stan was there, of course, along with the Northwests and a few of their servants. Dipper was also unsurprised to see Soos sitting on one of the luxury couches, restlessly drumming his knees with his fingers. He hadn’t expected, however, to see Lazy Susan and Cutebiker waiting nearby, as well as Sheriff Blubs and Deputy Durland.

A knocking to his left distracted him for a moment, and he turned to a nearby window to see McGucket peering in front outside.

“Little hole-filler boy!” he yelled as though still trying to get Dipper’s attention. “I done thought you was dead! Certainly am glad you ain’t, o’ course. I gots me a terrible problem that I needs some help fixin’ with!”

At the sound of Mcgucket’s shouting, the rest of the townsfolk turned their heads to see what the commotion was about. Stan was the first one up, approaching the twins quickly before anyone else had a chance.

“Dipper!” he said, putting both of his hands on the boy’s shoulders and blocking him from view of everyone else. “Glad to see you’re still kicking. Feeling better?”

“Sure am,” Dipper said. His head was still a little woozy, but he had been through worse.

“He should have something to eat,” Mabel said. “He hasn’t had anything since yesterday.”

“Good idea,” Stan said. He looked back over his shoulder and shouted, “Hey, Preston! Can you get one of your French maids to grab the kid some food?”

Preston Northwest didn’t look the least bit happy to be offering his hospitality to the Pines, but a few quick words sent two servants away to some well-hidden kitchen in the guest house. Although it was hard to tell the size of it from the only two rooms he had been able to see so far, Dipper had a feeling that this place was much bigger than what most people would consider a house.

“It’s good to see you back in the world of the living, kid,” Stan said, leading Dipper over to one of the ornate couches in the room. He could feel the other people watching him, but they made no move to interrupt Stan just yet. “You had us pretty worried there, first disappearing in the middle of a storm and then passing out for a good day.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Dipper said. “It wasn’t really my plan for things to happen like they did. They just got way more intense than I was expecting.”

“No harm done,” Stan said. That felt like the end of the conversation, but Dipper knew that there was something else on his mind. From the hungry stares of the townsfolk, he had a feeling that there was something that they all wanted to talk about, but none had the courage to actually bring up.

All of his thoughts of the townsfolk were briefly pushed from his mind when the servants suddenly returned to the room carrying large platters of food. Somehow a table appeared in front of Dipper, and on it they placed fruits, breads, cheeses, little sausages, and a variety of other fancy things. His stomach grumbled, reminding him very suddenly that it had been over a day since his last meal. Just before he could skewer a sausage, though, he realized that everyone in the room was still watching him. Warm embarrassment flooded his cheeks.

“I, uh, can’t eat all of this by myself,” he said. “Everybody can help themselves.”

Cautious at first, the townsfolk slowly started to grow more bold as the group approached the expensive platters and grabbed handfuls of whatever looked pleasant. For five good minutes, the tension in the room took a break as they ate and quietly talked amongst themselves. Mabel appeared at Dipper’s side, sitting close to him on the couch, but neither said much. Dipper was busy trying to fill a very empty stomach, and Mabel seemed content to not say anything for a while.

It was nice, but as soon as the food was gone, the townsfolk turned their attention to Stan, who looked down at Dipper with a stern expression.

“Feeling better?” he asked. Dipper gave a quick nod. “Good, because now we have to get serious.”

Dipper glanced around the room, trying to gauge the tension on each person’s face. “Is this about the portals?” he asked.

“One of those horrible vortex things opened up right in my diner,” Lazy Susan said. She was the first of the townsfolk to speak directly to Dipper, and the act seemed to open the way for the others to do so as well.

“There’s one that’s pulling all of the leaves off the trees in the part,” said Cutebiker.

“Our cruiser was sucked in during the night,” Sheriff Blubs added, Deputy Durland mentioning a box of donuts that had gone missing as well.

“Heh, not to add more to your plate, dude,” Soos said, “but my abuelita’s house is like, right on the edge of one of those things. I had to climb over the back fence just to get over here.”

“All my junk is going to be gone in the blink of an eye!” McGucket shouted from the window.

Dipper nodded at each person, doing his best not to show how freaked out he was about all of this. The problem had definitely gotten much worse since before his visit to Norma’s shack. He wondered if Bill had something to do with it, if the demon had more power over his portals now that he was back in the mindscape. There was no way to know, really, and it was far more important that Dipper deal with the issue at hand.

“Okay,” he said. “So, you want me to close all of them?”

The others looked rather hopeful at the suggestion, although they seemed hesitant to actually ask him to do it.

“That’d be mighty kind of yeh!” McGucket bellowed.

“Okay. Cool, yeah,” Dipper said. “I can do that.” He looked up at Stan. “Are we ready to leave right now?”

“Dipper!” Mabel scolded, giving him a light nudge on the head. “There’s no way you can take care of them all by yourself. You’re sick, and there’s still way more than you’re used to anyway.”

“I’m not sick,” he grumbled, although he didn’t try to argue too hard. There was a fire lighting up in Mabel’s eyes, and at that moment he didn’t have it in him to fight her.

Mabel turned to the rest of the group, who had watched the brief exchange in silence. “Dipper figured out the way to close the portals for good. That’s what he was doing yesterday, when we didn’t know where he was. He found out that his old way wasn’t a really good solution, so he figured out how to do it better this time.” She smiled at her twin, and Dipper felt himself blush. She clearly thought that he had done a lot more to work for it than he really had. Warner had practically handed him the solution, after all. He couldn’t really take any credit for the discovery.

“It’s really easy, too,” she continued, “pretty much anyone could do it. You just have to say, uh…” She rubbed her chin for a moment, eyes squeezed in concentration. “Well, a bunch of stuff in some other language. I’m sure that Dipper can write it down for everyone, and then we can get the whole town cleaned up in no time!”

She looked around hopefully, grinning at each of the people assembled. Most of them did not share her enthusiasm. Instead of jumping at the chance to get started, they looked hesitant, unsure about whether this was the best course of action. Dipper couldn’t blame them, really. He was the only one with experience actually closing the things, everyone else had just seen the destruction they caused by simply existing. If they weren’t excited at the prospect of facing the portals head-on, he could hardly blame them.

“It’s alright,” he said. “I’ve been doing it alone this whole time. If this is the last of them, then I’m sure that I can take care of them just fine.”

“You’re not alone,” Mabel said. “I know that I’m going to be helping! You can’t just get rid of me.”

“I guess I can help, too,” Stan said. “It should make up some of my community service hours, at least.”

“Hey, dude, I always got your back,” Soos said, leaning forward to smile at Dipper. “Even when we’re dealing with crazy portals that destroy literally everything that gets close to them.”

The rest of the townsfolk didn’t seem too keen on the idea, though. They shuffled their feet and looked away from Dipper, not nearly as interested as they had been a minute ago. Dipper didn’t mind. They might have known about all of the weird stuff that went on in town, but he was still the only one who actively went searching for it. Even if they didn’t yet know that this whole mess was pretty much Dipper’s fault, he was still willing to shoulder the burden of putting everything right.

“The rest of you should make sure that everyone in town is safe,” Dipper said. “Evacuate people if you need to, and then get yourselves to safety. Us four can take care of shutting those things down.”

“Seven, I bet,” Mabel said. “I know a few people who would be way excited to help save Gravity Falls.”

“Seven,” Dipper said. He looked around at the assembled group. It struck him that everyone there was looking to him as a sort of leader, and he wasn’t sure he liked the feeling. “You can go do that, I guess. I just have to tell these guys how to close the vortexes.”

There were a few polite words shared between the people, and one by one they trickled out of the room. None seemed excited to go back out into the world, but they were all determined, and they all had faith in Dipper’s plan. Of course, it was that level of trust that got Dipper into this mess in the first place. He wished that just one of them would hang back to find out what he and the other three were going to do, but none did. The last to leave was McGucket, who stayed perched at the window until the room was nearly empty.

“Don’t forget the junkyard!” he called, and then jumped down from whatever he had been standing on.

“Okay,” Dipper said to himself. He looked to one of the servants standing motionless nearby. “Could you grab me some paper? And a pen?” In an instant, a pad of floral handmade paper appeared in front of Dipper, a calligraphy pen lying beside it. “Ah. Thanks.” He picked up the pen and started to jot down the words of the ritual.

“It’s really easy to close them, actually,” he said. He found it complicated to write with the pen, and his handwriting came out a bit messier than normal. The words seemed legible, at least. “You just have to get close to the portal and then recite the words. Oh, and be careful not to get so close that you get sucked in. That would be pretty bad.” He tore off one sheet for each of the other three people and handed them out.

“We should probably start by going to each of the places that people mentioned earlier,” he continued. “We’ll take care of all of the portals we know about first. After that, we should do a sweep of the town and make sure that none are left over. If we’re lucky, we might have this whole thing cleared up by the end of the day.” He looked around at the familiar faces. “You guys ready for this?”

“Just got to make a couple phone calls,” Mabel said. “I’m going to get you the best portal-closing squad this town has ever seen!”

 

* * *

 

Even if Candy and Grenda weren’t exactly the best, Dipper certainly appreciated their enthusiasm. Mabel had given plenty of warning that they were possibly facing a very deadly adversary, and still they had arrived just outside of town right on time. Dipper had given them a brief rundown on what was going on and how to deal with it, and then they were off to save Soos’ abuelita’s house.

Wendy had also arrived, something that surprised Dipper a bit but he decided not to question. Not so surprising was her relaxed demeanor even in the face of possible doom, a trait that he had always admired given his tendency to panic. She had grabbed Soos and taken off not long after Dipper filled her in, with a promise that they would take care of the park and then head over to the junkyard.

Stan took off to clean up Greasy’s Diner, leaving Dipper and Mabel to tackle the one just outside of the police station. It was early evening when they finally set off, and although the sun’s rays were starting to bear down onto the horizon, Dipper was still hopeful that they would be able to finish by the day’s end. Even though he was perfectly comfortable with the thought of searching for portals after sundown, he had a feeling that the others would want to wait until the sun came back up for the final sweep.

Along the way to the station, Dipper could feel Mabel casting worried glances at him from time to time, and for a while he tried to ignore it. They were still several blocks away when he decided that he’d had enough.

“Will you stop doing that?” he asked.

“Stop what?” Mabel asked. Her steps slowed a bit as they walked, and Dipper fell back a bit to walk in step with her.

“Stop acting like I’m going to pass out again,” he said. “I’m fine, and we kind of have bigger problems to worry about right now.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, finally glancing away. “I’m just worried about you. Protecting Gravity Falls is important, and I’m glad that you found a way to do it, but you’re still my brother. I’ve got to look out for you, don’t I?”

“I…” Dipper stopped, and remembered times she had tried to help him in the past, and how he had pushed her away. Of course he knew what it felt like to be protective of her, but he had never really considered how she felt the same way towards him. “Thanks,” he said. “I guess we have to look out for each other.”

“Mystery Twins?” She raised her hand up for a high five, and he happily returned the gesture.

“Always,” he promised.

They continued walking, and before long at all he could start to feel the by-now familiar tugging sensation. On top of it, however, he heard a noise that was completely new to him: a high whistling, a bit like a pipe that had sprung a leak. He couldn’t tell exactly where or what it was coming from, but he had an idea of where it might have originated.

“Be careful, Mabel,” he said, his voice dropping to nearly a whisper. “I think another one of those monsters might have crawled out of the portal.”

“Can you see it?” Mabel whispered back. Dipper was impressed that she seemed to have realized the potential danger these things posed, then remembered the Mystery Shack covered in webbing. Of course she did, she had lived through one attack already. If anyone was capable of helping him out now, it would be her.

“Not yet,” he said. “We probably need to get closer to the portal.”

They inched up the street together, dodging behind cover whenever they thought they saw movement.As they drew nearer to the station, the force of the portal increased, and the whistling grew louder. Dipper placed a hand on Mabel’s shoulder to steady her, and his hand received a light pat in response. Mabel didn’t need his help, but she still appreciated it.

Finally, they got to a place where they could just see down the street towards the police station. Peering around a mailbox, Dipper noted that the portal was far from the biggest he had encountered, but was still large enough to have swallowed a police car and was plenty dangerous. The whistling stopped for a moment, so that all Dipper heard was the whoosh of air rushing by his ear.

“Is this the part where magic–” Dipper clapped a hand over Mabel’s mouth, but it was too late. The whistling had started again, higher and growing louder with each second. A moment later, the creature appeared from behind the steps leading to the police station.

Its long, blood-red body was divided up like a worm. Hundreds of feet, hooked on the ends with black claws, skittered forward. What Dipper assumed to be the head was suspended just above the pavement, a pair of vicious-looking pincers just able to cover a pair of gleaming black eyes. The whistling noise projecting from it turned out to be coming from its backside, where several large glands were issuing out jets of purple gas.

Although it was hard to judge from the angle and distance he saw it at, Dipper guessed the thing to be at least ten feet in length.

“Okay, so we deal with this thing first, and then we do magic, right?” Mabel whispered. Dipper nodded.

“We need a plan,” he said. “And we have to be careful. That thing clearly has two main methods of self defense, so you can’t get close to either end of it. Our best bet would probably be to let it throw a few hits and then–”

“It’s Mabel time!” Mabel bellowed, jumping out from behind the mailbox. The creature’s beady eyes locked on her, and they stared at each other for a moment, the purple gas continuing to stream into the air. “Hey, buddy, you’re a million years too late to be messing with our town,” she yelled. “If you want to cause trouble, then you’d better take it up with my brother Dipper, because he doesn’t let anything threaten our home!”

Then, she spun around and ran back, the creature in hot pursuit. Dipper didn’t have time to understand what was happening before Mabel grabbed his arm, yanked him out of his hiding spot, and took it herself.

“Mabel!” he cried, but he couldn’t wait for an explanation. The creature either couldn’t tell the difference between the twins or didn’t care, because it continued on its path, barreling straight towards Dipper. He ran in the opposite direction, up the street and away from the vortex.

“I have a plan, Dipper!” he heard her shout. “Just turn around and get it into the phone booth back here!”

“Of course she wants me to turn around,” Dipper grumbled. It took a few tricky maneuvers, but eventually he was able to turn the thing around and get it charging back up the street, towards the police station again. Mabel seemed to have disappeared, but Dipper didn’t have time to search for his twin. Despite his success in turning himself around, it had come at the price of the creature being much closer behind than it had been before. It was now near enough that he could hear it snapping at his heels every so often, and he was certain that it would connect soon if they didn’t do anything.

The phone booth was just up ahead. It was old and worn, and Dipper had a feeling that the thing hadn’t been used in years. Pages from the phone book lay in a soggy pile on the floor, and the plastic windows had long scratches on every pane. Dipper wasn’t sure what Mabel’s plan was before he saw her scramble on top of the thing and wave down to him.

“Oh boy,” he said to himself.

He reached the booth, then turned and looked back. The creature was just feet behind him, its jaws snapping madly at the space between them. Dipper watched it come nearer, fear building in his stomach. Ten feet away, then five, then two…

Just as the creature made a final lunge at him, Dipper jumped with his hands in the air and felt Mabel latch onto him. The jaws snapped at somewhere just below Dipper’s feet, and the creature crashed into the booth. While Mabel was pulling him onto the roof, Dipper kicked the door shut. The creature writhed and squirmed, knocking its pinschers against the windows, but it couldn’t escape. Meanwhile, the booth filled with gas, turning the air inside a hazy purple. After a minute, the beast’s movements started to slow, and then it fell into a limp pile.

Dipper and Mabel climbed down to get a better look at the creature. On closer inspection, Dipper saw that it was still breathing, and he guessed that the gas had just knocked it out. Now that it was unconscious, the whistling had stopped, leaving a peacefully dozing monster alone in the telephone booth.

“You know, it’s kind of cute when it’s not trying to kill us,” Mabel said, gently touching the plastic. The creature didn’t stir at her voice, and Dipper guessed that they would have enough time to close the portal without distractions.

“That’s a little bit easier for you to say,” Dipper said. “It was only after you for like five seconds before you threw me out there.”

“Sorry about that,” Mabel said. “I just wasn’t sure that your noodle arms would be able to pull me up in time, and then we would’ve been in real trouble. Besides, at least you were able to run fast enough!”

“It’s kind of hard to slow down when there’s a monster right behind you,” Dipper said, but there was no malice behind his words. Instead, he tried to fight back the grin that insisted on settling on his lips. They had fought a monster together and won. The Mystery Twins were back in business.

“So, is this the part where we do magic?” Mabel asked, staring at Dipper with gleaming eyes. The intensity was almost enough to make Dipper uncomfortable, but he had to admire her enthusiasm for the task.

“Yeah,” he said, glancing back at the portal. In all of the excitement of being chased around by a monster, he had almost forgotten the reason they were there in the first place. Although it hadn’t pulled in anything to cause a significant increase in size, he was still wary of the possibility of something going wrong very suddenly. Best to take care of it quickly, then, before they had any bigger problem on their hands. “Do you still have that piece of paper I gave you?” he ask.

Mabel pulled it out of a pocket and waved it in the air between them. “Right here!” she said, a proud smile on her face.

“Great,” Dipper said. He stood up to face the portal and Mabel followed. They approached it together, stopping right as the pull started to get too powerful. “So, I’ve never tried this before, but I was thinking: it might make sense for us to recite the words at the same time. It might make the spell more powerful if we do it together.”

“I like that idea,” Mabel said with a grin. “Want to get started?”

“Yeah,” Dipper said. He looked down at the paper in Mabel’s hand. Even though he had the words perfectly memorized by now, it was still comforting to see them written out before his eyes. There was a long silence in which the two just stared at the page, each waiting for the other to take the lead.

“How about a countdown?” Mabel said once the silence got to the point of being awkward.

“Sure,” Dipper said. “Uh, I can start it, I guess. 3, 2, 1…”

“Ianuam claudet,” they said, their hands linked together. Dipper felt the familiar pulse of energy, but it wasn’t as powerful as it was when Bill led the ritual. The flow was steady, but it was still weak, and he just had to hope that Mabel’s part would be enough to make the spell work. “Ego clausitque mundi.”

Then the chanting started, and although the feeling was natural to Dipper, it struck him that this was the first time Mabel was experiencing it. He glanced to the side at her, and was surprised at the expression on her face. Rather than uncomfortable or even scared, Mabel looked determined. Again, Dipper was left in awe at the power his sister bore, and shame that he had tried to hold it back.

The portal closed gently, vanishing into nothing just as it had appeared. For a moment, Dipper almost expected the second ritual to start again immediately. Then he remembered everything that had happened, and he forced himself to move past it.

Mabel, who had no idea what was going through Dipper’s head, bounced and nearly squealed.

“We did it, bro-bro!” she cheered. “The Mystery Twins saved the day!”

“There might still be a few more portals out there,” Dipper said. Despite his words, he couldn’t fight the smile that played along his lips. “We should make sure that all the others went fine, and then we’ll do a last sweep.”

“You’re no fun,” Mabel said. She released Dipper’s hand and bounced away down the road. Dipper wasn’t sure where she was taking him, and he didn’t know if Mabel knew either. It wouldn’t have been unlike her to take off in any direction and hope for the best.

“We should probably check in with Grunkle Stan first,” he suggested. “He was the only one who went alone.”

“And after that, we should–”

Mabel didn’t have a chance to finish her thought. A tremor rolled through the ground beneath their feet, nearly knocking her off balance for a moment. Dipper, who by this point was used to falling over, stuck out his arms and braced himself. Luckily, nothing else happened, and after a moment of tense silence the twins looked towards each other.

“Earthquake?” Mabel said.

“I don’t think so.” Dipper looked around. The tremor had been quick enough that there didn’t seem to be any serious destruction. “Maybe it was another monster?”

“It’d have to be a pretty big one,” Mabel said. Although she didn’t seem to be completely convinced, the thoughts clearly unnerved her. “We should hurry up and make sure everybody’s okay. I hope all the other townspeople are safe.”

“Yeah, looking back, we didn’t really do a great job organizing an evacuation, huh?”

Mabel shrugged. “You’ve got enough on your plate,” she said. “You can’t be expected to do everything. You’d probably literally explode!”

“I think you mean figuratively,” Dipper said.

Mabel poked his stomach, eliciting a small laugh. “Literally!”

Dipper lightly shoved her away with a chuckle. “You’re probably right,” he said. “Blubs and Durland love this place. I’m sure they’re taking care of everybody just fine.”

Although they left the conversation at that, both of the twins walked briskly. The diner was only a few streets away, but the possible ways things could go wrong stayed in their heads and made the walk seem much longer. Mabel played with the sleeves of her sweater as they walked, while Dipper adjusted his hat every few feet.

“Is it nice to be by yourself again?” Mabel asked. They were still a few blocks away, but the silence had been starting to get to both of them, so Dipper was glad to have it broken.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Dipper said. “I’m glad that I didn’t really get too used to it. I mean, while Bill was around, it was a constant thing and it sort of became the most important thing on my mind, but now that he’s gone I’m realizing that it wasn’t as big a deal as I thought it was.” He coughed. “No, I mean, it was a huge deal, but in the context of my whole life, one week is nothing. I really didn’t get a chance to get used to it, so being alone at this point feels just like normal.”

“That’s good to hear,” Mabel said. “It would have been really weird if you’d, like, forgotten how to function as a single person.”

“Definitely not,” Dipper assured her. “And I guess it is a kind of a relief sometimes. Like, right now, I can have a conversation with you and I don’t have to worry about my own voice interrupting me. That’s pretty great.”

“Really great!” Mabel said. She wasn’t quite skipping as they walked, but the bounce in her step resembled something close to it. “Are you angry at all?”

“At Bill?”

“At anybody,” Mabel said. She took a few steps ahead of him and turned around to walk backwards, facing him while she talked. “Bill for starters. I still don’t know exactly what happened, but it sounds like he used you, which is terrible. And I know that you have a habit of blaming yourself for this stuff, even if it’s not your fault and there’s no way you could have known what would happen.”

It could be annoying how well she knew him, but Dipper couldn’t find the energy to deny her words. “I know that I couldn’t have known Bill was lying,” he said, “but I still shouldn’t have been so eager to trust him. If I had just thought things through a little more… I don’t know, maybe I would have figured this out before everything fell apart.”

Mabel shrugged. “Maybe,” she said. “Nobody can know for sure. I do know, though, that if you hadn’t been here at all, Gravity Falls would have been in a lot more trouble. It might have taken longer than you meant it to, but you did figure out how to close the portals in the end. Who knows what would have happened if you hadn’t done that?”

“Heh, yeah,” Dipper said. Although his guilt was far from gone, he did appreciate Mabel’s words. Even if he couldn’t stop blaming himself, it was kind of nice to know that Mabel didn’t blame him as well.

“And anyway,” Mabel said, “I’m surprised that you’re not so angry at Bill.”

“Huh?”

“Normally when you’re mad at someone, you mutter about them constantly,” she explained. “Like, all the time, and it kind of drives me crazy. You’re not doing that right now.”

“Maybe I have too much other stuff on my mind?” Dipper guessed, but now that he thought about it, his feelings about Bill were still kind of cluttered. Of course, he had been furious at the demon back in the dream, and some of that still lingered. However, it didn’t feel quite right. He would have expected himself to feel some amount of blind hatred, but he didn’t. He didn’t know what he felt.

“Right now, I kind of just never want to see him again,” Dipper said, and that felt true enough coming out of his mouth. “Maybe he’ll be frustrated enough with this whole thing that my wish will actually come true.”

“That wouldn’t be so bad,” Mabel said, turning around again so that they could walk side by side.

Any response Dipper had been planning was roughly shoved aside when they rounded a corner and saw the state of Greasy’ s Diner. Although it was hard to tell at first with the mangled wood lying everywhere, it quickly became apparent enough that the roof had collapsed.

“Grunkle Stan!” Dipper shouted, racing forward.

“Dipper, wait!” Mabel called behind him, but he didn’t listen. If something had happened to Stan, if he had actually…

Dipper didn’t need to finish that though. He got to the other side of the building to find Stan on the steps, banged up and sore-looking but very alive.

“Grunkle Stan,” Dipper repeated, softer. Without thinking, he ran forward to hug his Grunkle, who jumped at the contact and stared down at Dipper with a look of shock.

“Woah there, kid, slow down,” he said. “I’m fine. The diner’s going to need some repairs, but I made it out alright.”

“Grunkle Stan!” they heard Mabel shout. A second later she was grabbing his other side, her arm overlapping her twin’s. “Oh my gosh, what happened? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” he said again. He looked behind himself at the broken building, then returned his gaze to the kids. Dipper pulled away and stared at his Grunkle, waiting quietly for some sort of explanation. Stan had clearly been through a lot, so Dipper didn’t want to push him, but he also wanted to know right away.

“The whole thing wasn’t what I expected it to be at all,” Stan said. “I got here, and most of the stuff inside the diner was already gone, and that vortex thing was pulling apart the foundation. I figured it would be as easy as reading the stuff of the paper, but it really took a lot out of me.”

“But what about the roof?” Dipper asked. He looked up at the building again. The windows had all blown out, and it was a wonder that the walls were still standing at all.

“Oh, right, that thing,” Stan said, as though he had completely forgotten about the trashed structure behind him. “Like I said, the thing was tearing apart the foundation. I thought it would be okay without a few of the beams, but then that quake hit and knocked the whole thing down.”

“With you still inside?” Mabel gasped.

“Nah, I got out in time,” Stan said. “It wasn’t easy though. Couldn’t really remember how to walk for a second. I might have passed out when I got outside, too. I can’t really remember.”

Dipper looked over at Mabel. “The ritual does take a lot of power to perform,” he said. “It was probably easier on us since we did it together.”

“Are you feeling better now?” Mabel asked, turning back to Stan.

“Sure,” he said. “I’m probably not going to be able to move tomorrow, but right now I feel great. I could probably fight a mountain lion! Not necessarily win, of course, but I could fight one!”

“Awesome!” Mabel said. “Then let’s go save the town!”

“Sure, sweetie,” Stan said. “Can you two just help me up first?”

Each twin grabbed onto their Grunkle’s wrist, and together they hauled him onto his feet. He seemed shaky for a moment, and Dipper feared that he was about to lose his balance, but he remained standing.

“If you were able to feel the tremor over here, it might be a bigger deal than we thought,” Dipper said. “We should definitely find the others fast and get this whole thing taken care of.”

After a few moments of deliberation, the three agreed to go to Soos’ house, where Candy and Grenda were. Although Mabel expressed complete confidence in her friends, she did seem a little bit worried. Dipper couldn’t blame her. He had been feeling good about their prospects when they set out, but the tremor was making him uneasy. It seemed like too great a coincidence for it to come on the same day that they were finally closing up the portals.

They started to see more people as they approached the more residential area of Gravity Falls. People were coming out of their homes to find out what was going on, news traveling much faster by neighbor than any other means of communication. He saw a couple of cars tightly packed with children and luggage, the parents apparently not keen on waiting for the last minute. Dipper could hardly blame them for being worried, but it was still disheartening to see people taking off when they were so close to the end. As they walked, though, another tremor rocked beneath their feet, and Dipper had to wonder if maybe those families had the right idea.

“Woah!” Mabel cried, stumbling as the ground swayed beneath them. Dipper grabbed onto Stan, which turned out to be a not-so-great choice, as the older man still wasn’t totally steady on his feet. They fell together, landing in a messy but relatively harmless pile together.

The shaking stopped after several seconds and Stan pushed himself up, offering a hand to Dipper.

“You okay, kid?” he asked.

“Yeah, fine , thanks,” Dipper said, accepting the help. “That one was stronger, wasn’t it?”

“Totally,” Mabel said. “I can’t even believe that I managed to stay up the whole time! I probably would have been better off just lying on the ground with you guys.”

Dipper felt heat rise to his cheeks. “We weren’t–”

“Yeah, that’s the right idea,” Stan said, cutting him off. “When life gives you lemons, lie on the ground and pretend they’re not there. It’s worked for me so far.”

Mabel laughed, and Dipper cracked a small smile.

“Mabel!” Two voices carried swiftly down the street, and Dipper turned around just in time to see his twin get tackled by her two best friends.

“Candy! Grenda!” she squealed. “Did you do it?”

“We rocked it!” Grenda said. “Took that thing down like a piece of cake!”

“The simple instructions were easy to implement in the field,” Candy added.

“Great,” Dipper said. “Were there any monsters running around?”

Candy adjusted her glasses. “Just the one,” she said. “It was not an issue.”

Dipper decided to ignore the tingle of unease that shot up his spine and focused on the facts. “Good,” he said, just managing to keep his voice from cracking. “Next, we should probably head to the junkyard. Soos and Wendy said they would be going there once they were done in the park, and if the rest of us are anything to go by I bet they’ll be done by now.”

“To the junkyard!” Mabel cried, leading the charge.

The walk there was surprisingly uneventful, and became even more so as they approached the yard and saw no whirling clouds of junk up in the air. Unless McGucket’s problem was very tiny, Dipper thought it reasonable to expect some sort of chaos surrounding the portal. Instead, they were met with a very uncomfortable peace, which was not improved by the sight of Soos and Wendy leaning idly by the front gates.

“Hey, cool of you dudes to show up,” Wendy said, offering the group a small wave.

“We’ve looked all over the place already,” Soos said. “Couldn’t find another portal vortex thingy like the one in the park.”

“Maybe McGucket made this one up?” Mabel suggested.

“It seems kind of unlikely,” Dipper said. “I mean, the guy’s old and probably sick, but I don’t think that he would just lie to us. There’s got to be something in there that freaked him out.”

“We didn’t look inside the junk piles,” Wendy said. “Maybe something’s buried in one of them?”

“Or maybe it’s all an elaborate trap, and this whole thing has been his plan to get the seven of us to all get caught at the same time,” Soos said. “Like, maybe there’s some pressure plate in their that only works when it had our combined weight on it.” He glanced around at the assembled faces. “Maybe it would be best for us to split up.”

“No, splitting up is probably not a great idea,” Dipper said. “If McGucket is right and you somehow missed it, then there could also be a monster running around here somewhere. We should probably play it safe and go in together.”

“As a team,” Candy said.

“The Mystery Team!” Mabel cried. She looked around, but aside from a few pleasant smiles, the group didn’t seem eager to take up the name. “Just you wait. It’ll be a thing. I’m going to make this one stick.”

“We need to make a plan,” Dipper said, putting them back on track. “I’ll lead the group, and Mabel can take the rear. Grunkle Stan, you and Wendy–”

That was as far as he got before ground started to shake again and threw the whole group down onto dirt and pavement. The world bucked and rolled beneath Dipper, and he fought to find some way to hold himself in place. His fingers tore at the grass and scratched along the pavement, and in the end he was forced to submit to the movements and hope that he didn’t land anywhere too hard when it was over.

He sat up slowly when it stopped, wary of the possibility of a second wave. When no such thing came, he got to be a bit bolder, sitting up straight and looking around. The others were also making moves to get up, and from the looks of them nobody had sustained any serious injuries. Wendy had a cut on her cheek that would probably be worth looking at later, but otherwise there was nothing immediately wrong with anybody.

“Everyone okay?” he asked, just to be safe. The strangled chorus of grunts was enough to satisfy him.

“Dipper,” Mabel hissed. Dipper glanced over at her, and saw a purple bruise just starting to bloom on her chin. On her hands and knees, she crawled closer so that they could sit right next to each other. “Are you worried at all?”

“About what?” he whispered back. The others hadn’t noticed their conversation yet, to busy taking stock of their body parts to pay attention to much else.

“About these quakes,” Mabel said. “They’re not… You’re the puzzle guy. Don’t they seem like another clue to you? Like they’re a part of the bigger something that’s going on right now?”

“I guess,” he said. “But it doesn’t mean a lot if I still don’t have all the pieces. Like, there are earthquakes happening across the town. What do I do with that information?”

“We could go back and tell everybody that those people who left had the right idea,” Mabel said.

“No!” Dipper said, lauder than he meant to. Candy glanced over, so he smiled at her briefly and then dropped his voice again. “I mean, I trust McGucket. He’s helped us out in the past, and I don’t think he would have sent us here for no reason.”

“He wouldn’t,” Mabel agreed, “but we’re still dealing with Bill, here. If he’s planning something, then the townsfolk have a right to know about it and get their families to safety, don’t you think?”

“I…” She had an excellent point. Dipper had worked so hard to save the town, it would be an awful waste of energy if he didn’t try to save the people who lived in it. At the same time, his curiosity was still spinning, wondering what could have possibly been in the junkyard that McGucket wanted them to find.

“Give me five minutes,” he said, “just to look around. If I don’t find anything, then we head straight back to the neighborhood and tell everybody to pack their bags. Deal?”

“There’s my stubborn brother,” Mabel said with a smile. “Deal.”

Dipper got up off the ground and peered into the junkyard. The piles of trash were much more haphazard than they had been before, junk strewn across the ground, some of it still rolling down the slopes. However, none of it appeared to be moving in any specific direction, and he wasn’t sure what to make of that. Even with the chaos caused by the swirling portals, there was always a bit of uniformity to the stuff that got pulled in. Maybe McGucket really had been wrong.

Still, Dipper couldn’t risk leaving without being sure about the whole thing. He stepped through the gates and started to tiptoe around the rotting things and jagged scraps of metal. He suddenly heard crunching behind him, and he whipped around, only to discover that Stan and Mabel had followed him inside.

“What’s with the face?” Mabel asked. “You didn’t think I meant that I was going to let you go in alone, did you?”

“What face? Uh, I mean, no, of course not.” Dipper scrambled to find some sense to the words coming out of his mouth, giving up with a droop in his shoulders.

“Hurry it up, kid,” Stan said. “I don’t want to be under these big piles when another quake hits.” He had continued his slow march through the junk, and had almost caught up to Dipper when the boy finally got moving again. He seemed stiff as he walked, but stubbornly refused to slow down at all. Dipper, wishing not to get trampled, continued on ahead.

They spent a couple of minutes just picking their way through the garbage. Dipper stopped to inspect moving objects sometimes, but it was never worth the effort. None of them appeared to be rolling towards a portal to another universe, and it was a little frustrating. The ground started to slope up as they walked, which added to Dipper’s worsening mood. Of course stuff was going to be moving on a slope, that was how gravity _worked_.

“Maybe we should call it a day,” he said, turning back to look at his family. Grunkle Stan, although keeping up admirably, looked like he had seen much better days. Mabel had to peer around him to see her twin, and Dipper was confused when she squinted past him.

“So, I don’t spent a lot of time in the dump, so I’m not entirely sure if this is true or not,” she said, “but I’m pretty sure the ground was flat before. Like, I _really_ don’t remember this big dome in the middle of everything.”

“What are you…” Dipper turned around to get a look, and then he saw it. It was subtle, the top of the dome hardly rising much above the ground, but now that he looked for it he could definitely see it. Especially visible was the crest, which had been cleared of junk and appeared to have a large crack in it, reminding him of an eggshell.

“Yeah, that’s not normal,” he said. “Grunkle Stan, you should go back and get the others, then wait at the gate and make sure that nobody else comes in.” Although he really did want as many people as possible to help out with this one, Dipper was also giving his Grunkle the break that the old man so needed. He was grateful for all that Stan had done so far, but he had a feeling that the guy couldn’t do much more.

“Sure thing,” Stan said. “But hey, don’t you kids do anything stupid until they get here, alright?”

“You’ve got it, Grunkle Stan!” Mabel said.

He chuckled, and then turned and walked away, leaving Dipper and Mabel to investigate. Dipper approached the top of the dome, stopping before he reached the large cracks in the dirt. In the evening light, it was hard to see them quite clearly, so he couldn’t tell whether or not they were getting bigger.

“It looks kind of like a big balloon,” Mabel said, dancing around the dome.“Like it’s getting ready to pop at any moment.”

“Let’s hope not,” Dipper said, although it was mostly to himself. He had a feeling that Mabel was right, but his hope was that he could figure it out before that happened. He leaned down to run his hand along one of the cracks, and he noticed a strange sound as he did so. It was a bit like a distant buzzing, and at first he lifted his ear into the air. Hearing nothing, he leaned down again, nearly pressing her ear straight to the ground.

“Hear something, Dip?” Mabel asked from somewhere behind him.

“Yeah,” Dipper said, getting back up and turning to her. “It’s kind of like… I don’t know, digging?”

Dipper was ready when the next tremor hit, but it didn’t matter; the force of it knocked him and Mabel off their feet, sending them tumbling in different directions. He heard Mabel yelp from some distance away, but he couldn’t look to her or even call out, as his mouth filled with dust when he tried to open it.

There was a massive cracking sound, sending another shockwave through the ground, and the top of the dome exploded. Dirt and rocks fell on top of Dipper as the rest of the dome fell inward. Dipper felt the ground beneath him start to sink in, and he kicked away with all of the strength he had, even as the world continued to shake beneath him.

He just managed to crawl away from the crumbling structure and settled onto solid ground. The tremor subsided, although a cloud of dust still floated above the new hole in the ground, blocking his view of the remains of the dome.

“Mabel!” he yelled into the haze. He didn’t know where he was relative to where he’d started, or where she had ended up, or even where their friends were supposed to arrive from. The quake had completely changed the landscape of the dump, only adding to his confusion.

“Dipper!” he heard from across the chasm.

Relief hit him in the chest. She was alive.

“Mabel!” he shouted again. “I’m coming to you! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine!” she responded. “Be really careful, Dipper!”

“I’m careful, no worries,” he murmured, standing up shakily. Dirt and garbage rolled off his back, and he stumbled a bit to get solid footing. As he did so, he accidentally kicked a rock forward, straight to the edge of the gaping hole. It rolled straight off, and Dipper listened hopefully for the sound of it hitting the bottom.

No such sound ever came,and after a minute of waiting he knew that it was never going to happen. A familiar feeling was starting to pull on his legs, but he didn’t want to get worried until he saw it with his own eyes. Cautiously, he peeked over the edge and looked straight down into the hole.

It was hard to see at first given the large cloud of dust still filling the air, but as Dipper’s eyes adjusted he found that he could just make out the lightning strikes jumping from a swirling vortex of green and gold. It was far down below him, and the distance made it hard to judge the exact size. Without a doubt, though, it was the largest portal Dipper had ever come across. The strongest as well, he reasoned, watching as it pulled chunks out of the walls surrounding it. It had already managed to create a sort of cavern far beneath their feet, having hollowed out the walls around it.

“Dipper, you okay over there?” Mabel called.

“I’m alright,” he shouted back. “Just, uh, getting a look at what we’re up against.”

“This one’s pretty big, huh?” Mabel asked, and Dipper could definitely pick up some of the worry in her voice.

“Yeah,” he said, “but we’ve also got the biggest team we’ve ever had to fight this thing. Everything’s going to be okay!”

He started walking around the edge, careful not to put his feet down on anything that might break underneath him. He and Mabel occasionally shouted words of encouragement to one another, but for the most part his focus remained on the portal spinning below them. Some of the junk was starting to slide across the ground and knocked into his legs on its way into the hole, but Dipper’s real fear was structural damage. The portal was swallowing up the earth at an alarming rate. Even if they managed to stop it from taking in all of the stuff on the surface, it wouldn’t do much good if the ground just collapsed out from under them.

“Did you hear something?” Mabel asked. Her voice was closer now, but he still couldn’t see her through the dust.

“No,” he said, his eyes back to his feet and making sure he didn’t step on anything that could move. “What did it sound like?”

“Like a slinky?”

Dipper paused. “A slinky?”

“Yeah,” Mabel said, “like a cosmic slinky.”

Dipper stood still and listened. Indeed, far below them, from the depths of the swirling vortex, came a sound very similar to that of a giant slinky. He leaned over the edge again, trying to get a better look. Far below them, amid the rocks and dust, something was moving. Unless his eyes were fooling him now, it was also getting closer.

He jumped backward as a giant black tentacle arched high into the air. It pointed straight up for a moment, then came down with a _smash_ , landing and gripping onto the edge of the chasm several yards from where Dipper stood. He yelled in surprise, nearly falling backwards in a desperate attempt to put some distance between himself and the thing. Its surface was black and slimy, and it was quickly getting coated in dust.

“Dipper!” Mabel called again. He looked towards her voice, and saw that the sudden movement had been enough to disperse the dust cloud, finally letting him see his sister’s face.

“Mabel!” he shouted. “Be really careful! We don’t know what this thing is!”

“Same to you!” she replied, and yeah, that was probably a legitimate thing for her to say.

Another tentacle shot straight up into the air and landed on the opposite side of the hole from the first. Strong suction cups held them both in place, but Dipper could see the ground starting to crack from the force of them.

“We’ve got to get out of here!” he yelled. “This thing is going to pull everything down any moment now. Just get away, and we’ll try to meet back up at–”

Neither of them had enough time to react. A third tentacle shot into the air and tried to land near the first one. Instead of grabbing solid ground, though, it wrapped itself around Dipper. The air was forced out of him, and he thought that he heard Mabel scream. It was kind of hard to tell, with giant suction cups covering his ears.

The tentacle held him for a moment before it realized its mistake and carried Dipper high into the air. It unraveled itself slowly, so that at first all Dipper could think about was how good it felt to breathe again.

Then, it dropped him.

He felt fast, flashing by the tentacles so quickly that he couldn’t pick out individual suction cups. He thought he heard Mabel’s voice from up above, but it was hard to tell for sure, and surprise was making it hard for him to form a proper response. After all the effort he had put into solving this problem, he was finally being done in because a giant octopus was too eager to get out.

_I have a really weird life_ , he thought as he fell through the portal and then just kept falling…

 

falling…

 

 

falling…

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one turned out to be longer than I expected, wow.
> 
> Today was my first day of senior year! I promise that I am going to do my very very best to keep updating regularly, but I just don't know how much free time I'm going to have from now on. The good news is that I have a number of days off this month, so I'll probably use those to make up for any time lost due to homework and other stuff.
> 
> If I do have to delay an update, then I will be sure to make an announcement on my [tumblr](instantduckballoons.tumblr.com) under the tag "never alone ever". Chances are good that if I miss a Friday, I just won't post until the next week. I ended up really stressing myself out the last time I updated late, and I just don't need that right now. Like I said, though, I'm really going to try hard to make sure that updates happen on time! Most likely, all of this information will be completely pointless!
> 
> Thanks so much for reading. Catch you next week!


	9. A SECOND MABEL INTERMISSION

“ _Dipper_!” Mabel screamed as the black tentacle landed on top of her brother. She jumped up to help him, but there was no time for her to react; she’d barely taken a step when the thing lifted her twin high up into the air, his legs still kicking despite the top half of his body being completely covered.

She grabbed out her grappling hook, prepared to shoot the tentacle where it held him, but then she reconsidered. If she hit it and it let go, then Dipper would have nowhere to go but straight down. She needed a plan, but she wasn’t the planning twin. Dipper was. If that was her dangling up there, he would be planning her rescue. Heck, he probably would have already been acting by this point.

Her moment of hesitation turned out to be one moment too long. The tentacle uncoiled itself from around Dipper, dropping his body into the dark chasm. He didn’t make any noise, didn’t even seem to notice Mabel as he fell past. She could see his limbs flopping limply behind him, felt a mounting horror rising up in her.

Then he vanished into the portal, and a scream ripped through her throat again. Fumbling for the grappling hook, she kept trying to think of a plan. Tears were blurring her vision as she stumbled towards the edge, finger around the trigger. She wasn’t sure if the rope would be long enough to get her all the way down, but it had saved them that time on the bridge, hadn’t it? She would go down, pop through the portal, pull Dipper out…

It was a terrible plan, but it was all she had, and this was _Dipper_ on the line. She needed to act fast, do what Dipper would do for her. Mabel stepped up to the edge of the hole, peering down into the dark depths. Another tentacle was starting to snake up, but she could avoid it if she was careful. Really, the tricky part would be getting both of them out again, but they could figure that out later, once they were together and she knew that Dipper was okay. Right now, the only thing she could consider was getting to him.

She stepped off the edge, and immediately felt warm arms reach around her middle and pull her back. She yelped as Soos hefted her under one arm, knocking the grappling hook out of her grasp. It clattered to the ground, just inches away from the edge.

“Soos, wait!” she cried, reaching for the handle but unable to reach it. “Dipper… he–”

“Sorry, dude,” Soos said, turning away from the hole and starting to job back towards the front gate, “but Wendy said that whatever you were doing was probably a bad idea, and it seemed like a pretty fair point to me just now.”

“Dipper fell in!” Mabel cried, struggling to get out of Soos’ grip. He seemed to have locked his arm around her, though, and all of her effort turned out to be mostly pointless. “I need to go back and help him! He’s all alone right now, Soos!”

“I know, dude,” Soos said, and Mabel was struck by the sorrow in his voice. Never had she heard Soos’ voice break like that, and she didn’t think it was something she ever wanted to hear again. “I’m sorry. But we’ve got everybody here to help us figure this out. Besides, you know Dipper. He throws himself into dangerous stuff all the time.”

Soos’ words did nothing to calm Mabel, but she gave up fighting him and turned to look back. Just in time, she saw the fourth tentacle breach the surface and land heavily on the edge. The ground cracked underneath it, sending dirt and rocks pouring into the abyss. For a moment, it seemed secure. Then, the ground beneath the tentacles shifted down completely, causing a shock that made Soos stumble but failed to slow him down. There was another brief pause, and then the ground crumbled underneath the tentacles, sending them flailing back down into the darkness.

The world tore open behind Soos, expanding the hole and allowing more garbage to roll into the gaping portal. Mabel watched her grappling hook give in and tumble down before she had to look away and try to think her way through a plan.

 

* * *

 

Although Mabel swore that she could walk alright on her own, Soos refused to let her down until they were back to the front gate. Mabel was able to hear the sounds of destruction the whole way there, and even when they arrived she could make them out if she focused.

As she stumbled back onto her own feet, she looked around at their diminished group. Grenda and Candy jumped up and ran over when they saw her, leaving just enough space for the older folks to get to her as well. Wendy was leaning idly against the gate, her eyes flicking between Mabel and Soos, possibly trying to have some sort of silent dialogue with the two. Although Mabel wasn’t entirely sure what was being said, she did get the feeling that Wendy knew what had happened.

Stan was sitting on the ground nearby, leaning against the wire fence. He glanced up when Soos arrived, and then slowly stood up on creaky legs. Mabel tried to get him to stay where he was, but he refused, taking heavy steps to join the rest of the group.

Mabel got the feeling that they were waiting for her to say something. Of course, she had been the closest to everything when it all fell apart, they would want to hear the news from her. At the same time, though, she didn’t _feel_ like she could do the whole thing justice. Even now, the events seemed to be blurring together, so that everything seemed to have happened all at once, and it was making it difficult for her to put all of it into words. One moment, she’d been talking with her brother, having fun like they had all of last summer, and the next, the world had exploded. And then, out of nowhere, Dipper had…

She swallowed her grief, pushing it painfully back down into her chest. Dipper was the leader of the group, sort of. He had organized them, planned out their moves and given them hope. Even if he wasn’t feeling great about his own actions, everyone else trusted his word. Mabel was his twin and partner in crime. She had spent the most time with him and stood by him the longest, and so that sort of made her second-in-command. Now that Dipper was… not gone, indisposed, it was up to her to give them the same hope that had gotten them so far already.

“We found the portal McGucket was talking about earlier,” she said. Her voice was surprisingly strong, and for a moment she thought that maybe she would b able to get through the whole thing without a problem. “It was under the ground, making a really big cavern under the dump. We were separated for a little bit.” Her voice was starting to wobble, but she pushed ahead. She felt like she was racing her tears, and she needed to make sure that she won this for Dipper. “Dipper was coming towards me when this big thing came out of the portal…” She took a deep breath, ignoring the way the world was starting to blur around her. “It was another big monster from the portal. It, it reached up… And it… _Dipper_ …”

The tears spilled unbidden over her cheeks. She tried to wipe them away, but more took their place right away. She tried not to sniffle or whine, but it was hard. Everything had been going so right. They had defeated a monster and closed a portal together, and they were on their way to being done for the day. How had it all gone so wrong, just like that?

She heard footsteps coming closer and opened her eyes just in time for Grenda to pull her into a hug. Grateful for the contact, she buried her face into her friend’s shoulder and clung onto her back, holding her there until the tears finally stopped. When she was certain that nothing else was going to come out, she released Grenda and stepped away from her friend.

“Thanks,” she said, trying to smile. “You’ve got some really incredible hugging abilities, Grenda.”

“Probably from all the wrestling training,” Grenda said. “I’m really good at holding people.”

Mabel felt a hand on her shoulder, and looked up to see Wendy.

“You don’t have to say anymore,” Wendy said. “I didn’t see everything, but I kind of got the gist of what happened. I would have stuck around, but I wanted to make sure that these two were kind of safe before we did anything.” She pointed her thumb at Candy and Grenda, both of whom grinned at their mention before looking back to Mabel.

Mabel tried to smile again, and even if it still looked sort of pained, it felt a little bit more real to her.

“Thanks for protecting them, Wendy,” she said.

“Any time,” Wendy said stepping back. “We’ve got to look out for each other, you know? Work together. Can’t have one of us running off to go be a hero.” Mabel was glad that she didn’t say any names, but the pointed look that Wendy shot her was enough to make her cheeks burn pink. Okay, so maybe jumping off the edge had been a _very_ bad plan, but she hadn’t been thinking quite right at the time. Watching her brother vanish had scrambled her thought for a few minutes, at least.

The thought of Dipper made her smile fade again. Nice as this moment was, they needed to get a move on. Dipper was still out there.

“We need to pull together a plan,” she said decisively. “If we work together on this and pool everything we know about the portals, we should be able to figure out some way to get him out of there. Everything’s going to be okay!” She forced extra servings of confidence into her words, but it seemed to have no effect on the people around her. In fact, Wendy and Stan looked downright uncomfortable, shooting each other glances that Mabel guessed were supposed to have been private.

“I’ve got to be honest, sweetie,” Stan said, in a voice that meant honesty was going to come at the price of bluntness, “I don’t think it’s going to be that easy. Dipper knows the most about these things, and he was pretty secretive about it. We might get lucky if he wrote some notes down or something, but right now we just don’t have the knowledge to get us through this thing.”

“But we have to try something,” Mabel said, desperation leaking into her voice. “Dipper worked so hard to save this town. It wouldn’t be fair to have made him go through all that just to… you know.”

“That’s another thing,” Stan said. “As long as that thing spewing out monsters and tearing apart the ground, it’s a danger to Gravity Falls. Remember all those people back in Soos’ neighborhood? They’re not going to be around much longer if we let this thing get any worse.”

“So what are you saying?” Mabel asked, the words popping out before she could stop them. As soon as she spoke, she knew that she didn’t want to know the answer to that question. Stan was clearly suggesting that they were living in a worst-case scenario, and any decisions they made from this point on were guaranteed to have some sort of unhappy consequence. Normally, Mabel would have been fine with that, but to make such a choice usually involved a sacrifice, and there was only one thing that was immediately available to be gambled with.

So, she was both surprised and grateful when Wendy tapped Stan out and leaned down in front of Mabel. “He means that we’ve got to think of one thing at a time,” she said. “Right now, the most pressing thing is making sure that everyone in town is safe. That thing that you saw crawling out of the portal is probably going to get out soon, and everyone will probably want to be out of its way before it does. We have to make sure that they know what’s coming.

“As for Dipper: He’s a really resourceful guy, and he’s dealt with demon stuff before. Even if this is kind of new ground for him. I’ll bet anything that he’s already solving puzzles left and right. It might take us some time to get to him, but I’m positive that he’s going to be okay while he waits.”

“But we are going to get him, right?” Mabel asked. “We’re not just leaving him in there?”

“No way,” Wendy said, and that managed to get a small smile out of Mabel. If the teenager was that confident in their group, then maybe Mabel could be, too.

“The portal is still a significant threat to the town,” Candy said, adjusting her glasses in a way that told Mabel she was about to say something very analytical. Much as she appreciated Candy’s more logical side, there were times when it wasn’t exactly what she was looking for. “It might be too risky to leave it open for long.”

Mabel breathed slow. Candy was right, but it didn’t matter. Yes, she was asking them to risk a lot by making any sort of rescue attempt, but she knew that Dipper would take that same risk for her. Heck, even if he didn’t, Mabel would still be willing to, because that was her _brother_ trapped in there.

“If we close it, we might never find another one,” she said. “We have to leave it open until Dipper’s out. It’s his only way home.”

“Don’t worry, Mabel,” Stan said, placing a large hand on her shoulder. “We’re going to do our best to get that kid out of there. He deserves to see this place when it’s not on the verge of destruction, doesn’t he?” Mabel smiled up at him, even as he released her shoulder and stepped back.

“Okay,” she said, looking to the rest of the group. “In that case, we should get started right away. We need to go tell everyone what’s going on.”

“We should take my car,” Stan said. “Just in case that thing shows up and we need to get away fast.

“But you parked, like, way far from here,” Wendy said. “It might take us too long to walk all the way over there and then drive back into town. Everybody needs to know as soon as possible so they can get ready to leave.”

“Wendy has a point,” Mabel said, “but so does Grunkle Stan. So, let’s do both!” Everyone’s eyes were on her, but she didn’t mind the attention so much. She just wanted to figure this out quickly. “Grunkle Stan, you go get the car while the rest of us head back into the neighborhoods. Easy!”

“Is it such a good idea for us to be splitting up right now?” Stan asked. “What, with long-extinct monsters running around?”

“Mr. Pines,” Soos said, in a voice that clearly said he had been waiting for this moment for a long, long time. “I would be honored to assist you on your quest to retrieve the car.”

“Yeah!” Mabel cheered. “And anyway, you’re probably not even going to run into anything crazy. We took care of all of the portals between here and there, and I think one of us would have noticed some giant bloodthirsty thing running around. I’m sure you’ll be okay!”

“None of that makes me feel a whole lot more confident, but I thank you for the effort,” Stan said, glancing over at Soos, who was watching him with a hopeful expression. “It can’t hurt to give it a shot, I guess. If we run into trouble, we’ll just run back to you and try to figure something else out. Sound good?”

“Love it!” Mabel said, giving him a thumbs-up and a wide grin. She looked over at Wendy, Candy, and Grenda, the remaining members of her ‘Warn the Townsfolk About their Impending Doom’ squad, a name she had come up with on the spot and still needed a little more tweaking.

“You guys ready to go?” she asked. “Everybody’s counting on us!” While that wasn’t exactly true, given that none of the townsfolk knew they were coming, it still felt empowering to say. Her hands on her hips didn’t detract from the feeling, either.

Three words of affirmation, plus two good lucks from Stan and Soos, and a smattering of replies in kind, and the two groups parted ways. Mabel grinned at her friends as they marched up the street together, ready to take on the world. She turned to wave at her Grunkle one last time before he was gone, but she noticed the junkyard gate as she did so. Somewhere beyond that gate and through another, Dipper was waiting, lost in some unknown world that none of them could begin to imagine.

_We’ve got to go make sure that everyone is safe_ , she thought, as though her words would somehow reach her lost twin. _But as soon as we’re done, I’m coming back for you. We’re going to get you, Dip, so don’t worry! This whole thing will be over before you know it!_

Then, with her friends beside her, Mabel marched back into town.

The streets were deserted, probably thanks to Dipper’s earlier command to make sure that everyone was out of harm’s way. Although it was helpful to their current cause, because it meant that everybody would be concentrated in their neighborhoods, it did add a certain layer of creepiness to the whole thing. Mabel disliked walking down block after block without seeing anybody, not hearing anything beyond the people right beside her. The sun had also started to set for real, and in the growing darkness she occasionally saw what she thought were flashes of movement just beyond the edge of her vision. She rubbed her eyes several times, but it only served to make them red and sore.

They were about halfway to their destination when a small ripple rolled through the ground. It caught the group by surprise, making them stop where they stood, but it was nowhere near as strong as the earlier ones. Although Mabel felt that she should have been happy about that, instead it made her even more anxious.

“That was really weird,” Wendy said, her stance wide in case anything tried to knock her off her feet.

“It was different,” Candy said. “The tremors were gradually getting stronger, weren’t they?”

“Maybe it’s a warmup,” Grenda said, “and the thing is just getting itself ready for the biggest one yet.”

“That’s possible,” Mabel said. “No matter what, we can’t let it interrupt our mission. Onward!” Truthfully, she didn’t want to think about it too much, because she knew that if she did, she would probably find it to even be probable.

The group continued forward, now with a new sense of urgency pushing them towards town. They had worked so hard, _Dipper_ had worked so hard, it would be devastating for all of their efforts to save the town prove useless because everyone was wiped out in a giant earthquake.

Finally, they started to see houses up ahead. Many people had gone inside by this point, apparently assuming that the excitement for the day was over. A few were still out, though, talking amongst themselves in groups. Mabel started to walk to the nearest bunch right away, but Wendy grabbed her shoulder and held back. Mabel stopped immediately, looking up at Wendy and waiting for an explanation.

“We can’t just go up and announce to everybody that the ground is falling apart beneath our feet. They might kind of start to freak out, you know?” Wendy said. “We need some way to make them, like, hurry, but also not totally panic. You get me?”

“So just a little bit panicked?” Mabel asked.

“Just a smidge,” Wendy said, holding up two fingers to show just how little panic they wanted to have. It wasn’t much. “And don’t forget, the people here can be kind of… unpredictable.”

“Hm.” Mabel rubbed her chin, squinting her eyes in concentration. “What would Dipper do in this situation?”

“Uh, probably scream and freak out,” Wendy said. She noticed the look in Mabel’s eyes, and grabbed her shoulder before the girl could run off to do just that. “Woah there, Mabes. Just because Dipper would do it doesn’t mean it’s the best thing to do right now. We need to come up with something more Mabel style, don’t you think?”

“Uh.” Mabel tried to look confident, but it was tough without her brother nearby. “But I can’t come up with anything good right now. If Dipper were here, he would have a plan going already. I’m not great at all that planning stuff.”

“It didn’t matter with the spiders,” Candy pointed out. “We had no time to plan then, but you still saved us.”

“Yeah, you were totally awesome!” Grenda added.

“See?” Wendy said. “Let’s just forget about what Dipper would do right now. What are _you_ going to do?”

Right. _What would Mabel do?_ she asked herself, gazing around at the assembled people. A couple of them seemed to have noticed the four girls, but none had tried to approach them at all. She needed a way to get everybody’s attention fast. It was then that she noticed Sheriff Blubs marching down the street, stopping to talk to people occasionally but overall not nearly as worried as he had been earlier that day. That worked just fine for Mabel, because it meant one less person who might frighten the townsfolk.

She raced up to him, a winning smile already on her face.

“Sheriff!” she called, waving a hand as she ran up. He smiled and tipped his hat at her.

“Mabel Pines!” he said. “Glad to see you’re okay. You and your brother fix up all those vortex thingies already?”

“Not quite, but we’re really close,” Mabel said. “Do you have a megaphone on you? Or just something that I can use to talk really loud?”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” Blubs said, unclipping it from his belt. He handed it over freely, perfectly content letting a 13 year-old handle his tools. “Deputy Durland and I were going to go scare the geese down by the lake, try to get them to take their leavings somewhere else. That was before our car got eaten up, though.”

“Yeah, we’re going to try to do something about that,” she promised, gripping the megaphone in both hands. It was heavier than she had expected, and she could hear it crackle to life as soon as she flicked it on. “I’ll get this back to you in one minute!”

She whipped around, back to the huddles of people decorating the streets. Raising the megaphone to her mouth, she hollered, “Hey everybody, listen here!” Her voice carried all the way down the street, and people stopped their conversations to turn and look at her. She saw Wendy give her a thumbs up, and she grinned at her friends before barreling on. “You’ve probably noticed the weird portals popping up around town already. If you haven’t, I’ll give you a quick rundown: weird portals have been popping up and taking apart the town. It sounds crazy, but my brother has been working the whole time to keep the problem under control. He’s risked his life a whole bunch of times to make sure that this town stay safe.

“‘But Mabel,’ you’re probably saying, ‘I want to be able to help my town, too! Is there anything I can do about all this?’ I’m here to tell you that yes, there is! Right now, we are almost totally done closing up all of the portals. Seriously, we’re so close, there’s just one more. It’s really big, though, so it’s going to take everything we’ve got. We want to keep you guys safe, though, so we’re going to ask you to do us a favor.

“Take a quick vacation!” She saw Wendy laugh into her hand, but Mabel pressed on. “There are a bunch of really great campgrounds all around Gravity Falls. So right now, seriously, _right now_ , pack up all of your important stuff and take your family into the great outdoors. Preferably at least ten miles away, but whatever you want to do works fine! We want to know that you’re all having a good time while we take care of this stuff.”

She pointed to a random member of the crowd, a balding man wearing a black tie. “Aren’t you tired of your job? Aren’t you sick of nearly falling into a swirling vortex of doom on your way to work?”

The man looked around at his neighbors, suddenly shy at being called out, before he nodded. “Yes, you’re right. For the sake of the town, I supposed I will take a vacation.”

“Awesome!” Mabel cheered. “I like you, buddy. Everyone should follow your example, right now! Let’s go!”

There was a general shuffling around as people returned to their homes to get packed. Mabel returned the megaphone to Sheriff Blubs, who stared at it for a moment before replacing it on his belt.

“You should go, too,” Mabel said. “Maybe take Deputy Durland to Portland or something? Just skedaddle for a little while, you know?”

“Well, that sounds like a fine idea,” Blubs said. “I think I might just do that. See you around, Miss Pines!” With that, he took off to find Durland.

Mabel turned back to Candy and Grenda, both of whom were grinning at her. Despite her confidence a moment ago, Mabel suddenly felt shy under their gazes.

“Mabel, you rock!” Grenda said. “You almost made me want to leave Gravity Falls at its darkest hour!”

“The people were very receptive to your suggestion,” Candy said. “They will probably be on the move within an hour.”

“Good going, Mabel,” Wendy said, catching up to the others. “Let’s make sure that everyone got the message, yeah?”

“Sure!” Mabel said. They spent the next hour going door to door, checking in and making sure that everyone was packing quickly. The citizens of Gravity Falls were surprisingly prepared for such a moment when they had to take off and go camping. Mabel guessed that it was an Oregon thing.

Some people finished their packing much sooner than Mabel had anticipated, squishing themselves and their belongings into their cars within minutes. They took off without a backwards glance, and Mabel just had to assume that they knew where they were going. At the very least, those who left earliest were the ones with camping supplies at the ready, so they were ready in case of emergency at any rate.

Others required some extra coaxing to get going. The elderly citizens in particular required some encouragement to get going, and Mabel had to convince more than one person that it would okay to leave their Oxford English Dictionaries behind for now. Eventually, they did manage to get the street cleared out, as well as the next and the one beyond that. It was nighttime when they stepped onto the last street, where a few remaining stragglers were still trying to shove the last of their possessions into crowded backseats.

She and Candy were just pushing the last of a family’s luggage into their car when another ripple rolled through the ground. The waves had been coming all throughout the process, but this one lasted longer than any of the others, and Mabel had a feeling that it meant that the big one was on its way.

“I’m going to find Wendy,” she said. “Try to finish this soon, okay? We should probably try and get out of here.”

“I’d rather not be doing this too much longer anyway,” Candy said, straining against the last suitcase.

Mabel walked along the houses, looking for her other friends. The streetlights were on, but most of the houses were totally dark, and it gave the neighborhood an eerie feeling as she passed by. A few lonely lights remained to illuminate windows, their owners having forgotten about them in their rush. Like single eyes in the faces of the houses, they seemed to stare at Mabel as she walked by. She picked up the pace a bit.

“Wendy!” she called, seeing the older teenager just waving off another car. She turned and smiled when she heard Mabel’s voice.

“Hey, you all set?” she asked, in surprisingly high spirits considering that they were evacuating her home town.

“We’ve got a couple left,” Mabel said, “but they should be done soon. Then we’re heading back to the junkyard, right?”

“Of course,” Wendy said. “And Stan should be getting back with the car soon, so that’ll make the trip that much easier.”

She was about to suggest that they go help Candy when she heard it. Distantly, there came a great cracking sound, like the ground itself was splitting open. Mabel braced herself, prepared for the worst, but no quake ever came. Instead, she heard Wendy gasp beside her.

“Oh my god,” she said, pointing up at the sky.

Mabel looked, and her eyes grew wide. Against the bright background of the starry sky, a giant silhouette raised itself up off the ground. Large tendrils, probably the black tentacles she had seen earlier, rose and fell against the ground. A heavy load hung between them, suspended above the treetops and swaying with the movement of the tentacles. 

“It got out!” Mabel cried. “We have to get everybody out of here!” The thing, whatever it was, was massive, each tentacle just taller than the trees it walked through. Mabel was pretty sure that she could hear its footsteps already, although it was hard to tell whether or not they were getting closer.

It didn’t matter. No matter what that thing’s plan was, it was too dangerous to let the townsfolk stay nearby while it was still walking around.

She looked back at the remaining people. They were close to being ready, but had for the moment stopped to look at the giant thing blocking the horizon. Even Candy and Grenda had stopped what they were doing to look at it.

“You have to get out of here!” Mabel yelled. “Hurry!”

“We have to go with them,” Wendy said behind her. Mabel jumped at the sound of her voice. Her nerves were on fire.

“What? Why?” she asked.

“We can’t just send them off into the woods alone,” Wendy said. “That thing could trample them in just a couple minutes. If we really want to get them to safety, then the best thing to do is guide them there.”

Mabel looked between the monster and the panicking townsfolk. But, she couldn’t just leave Gravity Falls. Dipper was still waiting for her. If they left now, who knew how long it would be before they got back?

Wendy did have a point, though. That creature could be on top of them in no time. The townsfolk had never dealt with anything like this, it would be irresponsible to just leave them to whatever danger met them on the road. The whole reason they were over here and not back in the dump was to ensure that they saved the people Dipper had worked so hard to protect, wasn’t it?

She looked at the moving shape on the horizon. Its steps were definitely getting louder. Somewhere just beyond it lay the portal that had swallowed her twin brother.

“I have an idea,” she said. “It’s probably really silly, and we have to get it started before Grunkle Stan gets here, or else he won’t let me do it.”

“You going to do the same thing you did with the spiders?” Wendy asked.

Mabel nodded. “It’s a lot bigger than they were, and it’s already done a lot more bad stuff, but it’s still something that ended up in a really unfamiliar place. No matter what that it can do, I bet it’s still scared and feeling really alone right now. Maybe if I help it, I can convince it to leave everybody else alone.”

“You know this sounds totally crazy, right?” Wendy asked, arms crossed. “Like, you’re literally saying you’re going to go make friends with a giant tentacle monster that just crawled out of the ground.”

“You bet!” Mabel smiled, and although it wasn’t quite as sincere as the ones she normally dished out, she hoped that it would somehow be enough for Wendy.

The redhead sighed and shrugged. “Who am I to forbid such a noble venture?” She smiled. “Go grab Candy and Grenda. I don’t want you running off on your own. I’ll take care of everybody here, and I’ll tell Mr. Pines where you ran off to whenever he decides to show up. Sound good?”

“Yes!” Mabel cried, wrapping her arms around Wendy in a quick hug. “Wendy, thank you! I’m going to do my best!”

“I know you will,” Wendy said. “But just, stay safe, okay? I don’t want to have to explain to Dipper that you got hurt while trying to save him. He’d get all weird about it, you know?”

Mabel stuck out her tongue. “Yeah, that’s my brother,” she said.

She took off to grab Candy and Grenda, who were more than happy to stop packing cars, even if it meant going to confront a giant tentacle monster. Before they left, they shared one final goodbye with Wendy.

“I’ll make sure that everyone gets out of here safe,” Wendy said. “Just try to keep the thing busy for a while, at least. If things start to go screwy, just get out of there, and we’ll figure out something else later.

“Okay,” Mabel said. “Stay safe, Wendy!”

“Pfft, I’m not the one going after eldritch abominations,” she said. “Just take care of yourselves, okay?”

“You got it!” Mabel said.

With their goodbyes finished, there was really no reason for the girls to stick around any longer. They each waved to to Wendy as they started off, before turning around to face a very dark, very empty street. They started off at a jog, sometimes slowing down to catch their breath, but never stopping. It wasn’t hard to know where they were going: even when the giant shape disappeared behind trees or buildings, they could still hear its limbs crashing through the forest.

“So, what’s the plan when we find it?” Grenda asked. The houses had started to thin out, and the trees were growing thicker on either side of the road.

“I don’t really have one,” Mabel admitted. “We have to get close to the thing, first. And after that, we just have to focus on making sure it doesn’t attack anyone.”

“Got it,” Grenda said, as though Mabel had just provided a detailed list of carefully thought-out steps. Mabel felt sort of bad for asking her friends to go into this blind, but there was no time to plan or organize. Whatever they did would have to happen fast.

However fast they hurried to find the creature, it made the whole job a lot easier by going after them. Mabel wasn’t sure how it could have known where people were, but it seemed to be on a direct course for the line of cars making their way out of Gravity Falls. Although they had to adjust themselves a bit to make sure that they didn’t pass right by it, the trajectory nearly aimed it right at them.

They were running up the street one minute, and the next, a giant tentacle fell out of the sky and crash onto the ground in front of them. The three girls skidded to a stop, Candy bumping into Mabel and nearly knocking her over. They looked up at the limb that stretched far above their heads. It seemed to go up and up, as though it should have gone into the clouds, but then in gently turned back down to meet at a central point with the other tentacles. Mabel could see that there was something heavy suspended between them, but she couldn’t tell what it was in the murky darkness.

“Watch out!” Grenda cried, grabbing her friends and pulling them to the ground with her. The tentacle had lifted up again, dragging its tip along the ground and nearly plowing straight through them. It landed several yards behind them, growing stiff as the creature took another step. Its movements weren’t very fast, but the sheer size of it allowed it to quickly cover large distances. Mabel realized that if they didn’t act quickly, it would be out of reach in moments.

“Come on!” she said, hopping off the ground. “I’ve got an idea.”

She ran towards the tentacle, glad to hear her friends’ footsteps not far behind her. Just before she smacked into the massive limb, she jumped, grabbing onto the suction cups and gripping for dear life. They were firmer than she expected, and she felt them twitch a little bit at the contact. Luckily, she wasn’t shaken off, and she took that as a sign to keep climbing. She heard Candy and Grenda follow her a moment later.

“Is this safe?” Candy asked.

“I have no idea!” Mabel said. “But it seemed like a good way to get stuff done.”

They climbed up the tentacle, stopping whenever it moved. Mabel knew that she hadn’t really thought this through, but she realized her mistake when they were just about halfway up the limb.

“How much higher are we going?” Candy asked as the tentacle swung forward against in a massive step.

“We have to get to the head,” she said. “Or whatever that thing is, I guess. It looks important, don’t you think?”

“I don’t think that Grenda should go much further,” Candy said, making Mabel stop and turn around.

Grenda had her arms wrapped around the thick tentacle, her teeth gritted. Although she seemed to be hanging on alright, Mabel could see that she was having a bad time of it. Immediately, she felt guilt for bringing them up this high. She was comfortable with the planless approach to problem solving, but she hadn’t considered what it would mean for her friends, that she couldn’t provide any warning for whatever dangerous thing she was leading them into next. Grenda had been willing to go along with it so far, but Mabel would be pushing it if she asked them to follow her any further.

Okay. New non-plan.

“You guys head down,” she said. “You can hang on down below, or just follow on foot if you want. Just try to keep up, and we can work something out once I’m at the top.”

“You sure about this, Mabel?” Grenda asked. “We want to help!”

Mabel smiled down at her friends. “You are helping!” she said. “Knowing that I’ve got my two best friends in the world nearby is the best help I could ask for.”

“Okay,” Candy said. “Keep yourself safe.”

“You, too!” Mabel said.

She only spent a second watching her friends start to descend before Mabel returned to climbing. She had gone a long ways already, but adrenaline was keeping her going. So long as she didn’t look down for too long, it was even possibly to forget about the deadly fall awaiting her if she lost her grip.

_I’m definitely not thinking about that_ , she thought, ignoring the nervous sweat gathering on her forehead.

As she got closer to the top of the leg, she realized that she was going to have to switch tactics if she hoped to stay on. Once the leg arched down, it turned so that the suction cups were facing the ground, and Mabel was not prepared to monkey bar the rest of the way.

She climbed up a little further, until she could feel her hair falling back behind her and her arms started to burn from the strain of holding herself up. With one arm still gripping fast to a suction cup, she reached over to feel the smoother side of the tentacle. It was firm beneath her hand, but dry, and she figured that if she kept a steady grip she would be able to swing around and shimmy the rest of the way up.

She squeezed the smooth side of the tentacle and then wrapped one leg around it as well. Then, her other arm shuffled over a bit, so that she had two limbs on each side of the tentacle. She shuffled and scooted, trying to find the best grip to keep her up.

Mabel was not in a good spot when the creature took its next step forward. She squeaked as the tentacle swung forward, surprise making her legs lose their grip. Then she was dangling by her arms, already tired from the effort of getting herself to this point, and she could feel herself starting to slide down.

In a frenzy of panic, Mabel tried to kick her legs back up to where they had been a moment ago, but she couldn’t seem to find the hold. Her feet kept sliding back down the smooth surface, but she didn’t dare look down at them. She couldn’t bare to see the ground all the way down below.

She slipped again, a whimpered snaking out of her mouth as her legs continued to fight to find their place. She could feel tears pooling in her eyes while her heart pounded in her chest.

_I have to get back to Dipper, I have to get down to save Dipper_ , she thought, squeezing the tentacle as tight as her tired arms would allow.

She was so panicked that it took her a moment to realize that she was moving. She had stopped sliding, and instead found that the tentacle was rising up. At first, she thought that maybe it was taking another step, but when she looked back she realized that the tip of the tentacle was reaching up into the sky. The angle of her body was changing at the same time, going from vertical, to horizontal, to diagonal.

Slowly, she started to slide headfirst down the tentacle, towards the strange mass in the center of the limbs. At first, she was caught up in the shock of not plummeting to her death. She didn’t have much time to celebrate that, though, as she started to go faster and faster down the tentacle. She gripped hard to slow herself down, even as the rough skin burned her hands and made her eyes prick with tears again.

She came to a stop right near where the six tentacles all joined together in a dark ring, the skin folding down towards some concealed point. For a moment, Mabel wondered why it had brought her here. Then she watched as the skin started to unfold and parted, revealing a dark tunnel filled with sharp teeth. The turn and clacked its teeth together for a only a moment before it closed itself up again and retreated into the folds of skin.

“And here I thought you were trying to rescue me,” Mabel said, looking down at her hands. They were rubbed raw, the skin bright red and bleeding in places.

_Dipper’s going to freak out about this_ , she thought.

Although she really did want to get this done as quickly as possible, Mabel really did need a moment just to breathe. Although her fear was starting to shuffle away, she could still hear her pulse in her ears and felt a dangerous churning in her stomach. She leaned over the edge of the tentacle, just in case, but the sight before her wiped her mind of any sickness.

She was looking down on Gravity Falls, where most of the windows were dark but a few streetlights still remained to illuminate the way. Although she knew the small town inside and out, it seemed almost foreign from up here, familiar building twisting into strange shapes that she couldn’t recognize.

She had no idea how long it had taken them to get here, which was frustrating because she couldn’t figure out how far the townspeople would have been able to go by now. The monster was already over the downtown, which meant that it would probably make it to the highway in about the same amount of time. She didn’t want to know what would happen if she couldn’t stop it before it came upon the line of cars heading out.

Looking down further, she peered at the strange mass still dangling down underneath the mouth. Now that she could get a better look at it, she saw the the skin was oily and white, almost translucent. It quivered as the creature moved, and just before Mabel could dismiss it as some gross monster thing, it turned around, revealing a single neon green eye.

 The eye stared at Mabel.

Mabel stared back, a scream trapped inside her throat. Her legs had gone stiff at the same moment as the monsters.

Mabel managed to snap out of it first.

“Hey!” she said, leaning forward so that her hair hung over the edge. “You remind me of my old roommate!”

She felt the flesh moving beneath her feet, and jumped out of the way just as the mouth reopened, gnashing its spinning teeth. Mabel jumped onto the nearest tentacle, just hoping that it was too close for her to slide down again.

“Hey, hey, woah there!” she yelled, gripping the tentacle as best she could. Her hands stung from the contact, but fear of the sharp teeth gave her the strength to hold on. “I know you’re scared, but you don’t have to hurt anybody! How’s about we just calm down and talk it out?”

The teeth did not stop moving, and above her head Mabel could see a tentacle, getting ready to grab.

“Really, I need you to listen to me!” she cried. She tried to find somewhere to hide for when the tentacle came down, but where was she supposed to go when everything was a part of the giant monster? “I want to be your friend! We can work through this, you know?”

A strange sucking noise came from the creature’s mouth, and Mabel only had a moment to wonder before a long, wet tentacle emerged from it. The top didn’t end in a sharp tip, like the others, but instead formed a strange sort of ball, and the suction cups were much smaller than those on the larger limbs, only big enough for a few to fit on Mabel’s hand. It was shiny with moisture, and Mabel only had a moment to realize that it was a tongue before it shot towards her, wrapping around her torso and squeezing.

“No no no, please no!” she begged, all hope of friendliness gone in an instant. She could feel it pulling on her, trying to drag her towards its mouth. She tightened her grip, but it sent pain shooting through her hands, and she knew that she only had a moment before she would be forced to let go.

As quickly as it had grabbed her, the creature let go. Its tongue unwrapped itself from around her and shot back into its tunnel, the roof shutting quickly behind it. Mabel stared at it curiously, and watched in amazement as the mouth popped open just long enough to spit a shower of silvery droplets up into the air. For a moment, she feared that they were another self-defense sort of thing, but they landed on her skin painlessly, and didn’t give off the smell of anything dangerous.

The mouth popped open once more, releasing another spray, before the entire body of the beast grew still. Mabel stood in wonder, able to ignore for the moment her soaked clothes.

“Did you decide not to eat me after all?” she asked, not really facing any part of the body in particular. She felt bad about not making eye contact, but that was what had made everything go so poorly the last time, so she stayed where she stood.

“Well, I’m really glad you didn’t!” she said. “I’m Mabel, by the way. I don’t know if you have a name, but it’s nice to meet you!” Still, there was no response, and a part of Mabel wondered why she was even bothering with this part. Although she couldn’t exactly explain the logic behind her actions, it just felt right to talk to the giant monster like she would any person she was trying to befriend.

“Dipper told me about the portals,” she said casually. “How you used to live with dinosaurs and stuff, but then Bill showed up and kind of recked everything. You must have gotten sucked into one of those things, and then you just hung out in the mindscape for a bazillian years.” She stroked the thick skin with the back of her hand, feeling out the sharp ridges adorning its surface. “I bet it was really weird, getting out and seeing how much everything’s changed. I mean, a whole lot of stuff has happened since the dinosaurs were around!”

The mouth opened up again, but slower this time, the teeth staying in their places. The tiny little tentacle drifted out again, bobbing in the air for a moment before moving forward. Mabel tensed as it came near her, but it made no move to squeeze her again. Instead, the tip prodded at her a couple times before it shot back into the mouth. Again, a spray of droplets launched into the air.

“I don’t taste that bad, do I?” Mabel joked, then she froze. “Oh man, you’re hungry, aren’t you? I mean, you just went a million years without a proper meal, I’d bet you’d be! Oh my glob, I can’t believe I didn’t think of this sooner.”

She looked over the edge again, down at the oily white blob that she supposed was a head. “Hey!” she yelled, waving down at it. “Hey, buddy! I can help you get something to eat that’s not people! Just turn us around real quick, and I’m sure we’ll find something for you in no time!”

The neon green eye spun around to stare at her, and for a moment Mabel worried that she had made the same mistake all over again, that this time she wouldn’t get quite so lucky.

She didn’t have a chance to find out, as the surface beneath her feet started to shake. At first, she thought that the monster was trying to throw her, shaking and writhing about in a terrifying attempt to buck her off. Mabel grabbed onto its skin, wincing at the pain but refusing to be let go. She happened to glance up at their surroundings, and she realized that it wasn’t just the monster moving beneath her.

The entire world seemed to be shaking, nearly tearing itself to pieces as it rocked about. Countless trees disappeared from view, and she saw more than one building crumble to the ground. The sky itself seemed to be swaying around them, making it so Mabel couldn’t tell exactly which way was up.

The creature shook beneath her, stumbling to find its balance. Having six legs probably helped a lot, but it wasn’t a perfect solution. Mabel watched as one leg slipped out, and then another. The monster made a valiant effort to keep its remaining four up and supporting it, but it made no difference. Its legs crumpled beneath it, and Mabel felt the creature beneath her drop.

She was able to cling on as the air whipped past her and tried to tug her away, but it was very little comfort. Even with her eyes nearly squeezed shut, Mabel could see the ground rushing up to meet them them, and could still hear the effects of the earthquake below them. The street was coming towards them, faster and faster, and Mabel had to shut her eyes a moment before they hit.

The monster’s globular head cushioned their fall a bit, but it also bounced, breaking Mabel’s grip and sending her up a few feet into the air. She felt almost like a puppet being yanked up by the strings before she tumbled back to the ground, crashing and rolling across the asphalt. When she finally stopped moving, she shakily sat herself up, even though every part of her body was pain. The monster lay in front of her, its long tentacles draped across the town and twitching. Its large green eye glanced around its surroundings for a few moments before it landed on Mabel and stopped.

Mabel tried to get up, but pain shot through her left arm when she put weight on it. Compensating with the right, she pushed herself off the ground and stumbled towards the fallen creature, trying to divide her attention evenly between the eye and its six limbs.

“Hi,” she said once she got close enough. “I said this before, but my name’s Mabel. We got off on the wrong foot, I think, with you trying to eat me and everything, but I think we can put that behind us and get along. Sound good?”

The creature made no move to indicate that it understood. At the same time, it was making no move to eat her, and Mabel considered that a definite improvement in their relationship.

“Great,” she said without the enthusiasm she had meant to put behind her words. She had a hand wrapped around her hurt arm to keep it from moving, but pulses of pain kept sweeping down through her elbow. Dipper was _really_ going to freak about this. “So, uh, you’re a dinosaur. That’s cool.

“Mabel!”

She whipped around at the sound of Grenda’s voice, watching her friends appear out from under the mess of tentacles. They didn’t look like they had been through any worse than her, but Candy’s knees were scraped up and Grenda had a few twigs stuck in her hair. She was about to call back when she noticed that the monster was staring at the same spot, and one of its closest legs was wriggling. Without thinking, Mabel pressed her palm against the oily white surface, just underneath the eye. It felt squishy and gross beneath her hand, but she held herself there, forcing its gaze back to her.

“They taste a lot like me,” she promised. “If this thing is going to work, then you have to be nice to my friends and not eat them, okay?”

The tentacle fell still, and Mabel smiled.

“Hi guys!” she said, turning and waving with her right arm. “Look at my new pal!”

“He’s very big,” Candy said, staring up at the eye. It stared back, but Mabel was pleased to see that it made no other move.

“I don’t know his name, but I think he’s hungry,” Mabel said. “Can I borrow this?” She reached up and pulled one of the twigs out of Grenda’s hair. There were a couple green leaves still attached to it, and she waved them up in front of the monster.

“Hey, buddy!” she said. “You like veggies?”

The green eye stared at the leaves for a moment. Mabel wasn’t sure that it would be able to understand, but then its tongue appeared from up above and came down to gently wrap itself around the twig.

It started to draw the leaves back up to its mouth, and for a moment Mabel thought that they had met success.

The eye dilated suddenly, and it flung the twig away with a great spasm. It pulled its tongue back into its mouth, and a shot of droplets filled the sky.

“Okay, he’s not a vegetarian,” Mabel said, covering her eyes. “You know, it’s pretty rude for you to be spitting like that. It’s not how I act when someone offers me food.”

“Have you tried anything else yet?” Grenda asked.

“Well, not exactly,” Mabel said. She explained how it had tried to eat her earlier, but had decided against it. “He doesn’t like how people taste. I guess it’s because we came a while after he was around, so we probably taste super weird to him.”

“We could try chicken,” Candy said. “I heard that they’re descended from dinosaurs.”

“Or fish,” Grenda suggested. “I heard that there was this one kind of shark that was super huge, like, giant. Maybe normal shark would be kind of the same.”

“I read online that people taste kind of like chicken,” Mabel said. “Or maybe that was on TV. Either way, we already know that it doesn’t like how I taste, so maybe we should give fish a shot.”

“Okay,” Candy said. “Where are we going to find this fish?”

“At the grocery store?” Mabel said.

“We just evacuated the whole town,” Grenda said.

“Oh yeah.”

“We could break into the grocery store,” Candy suggested.

“That’s not a bad idea. Keep it in mind, just in case.” Mabel squeezed her eyes in concentration.

_Where to get fish, where to get fish…_

A streetlight blinked to life.

“I’ve got it!” Mabel cried, grinning at the monster. “Boy, have I got something to show you!”

 

* * *

 

Guiding a giant tentacle monster across town was hardly an easy task, but Mabel was confident that should could manage. With on hand clutching the very tip of a tentacle, she led it back through the streets and into the woods.

“Hey, be careful!” Grenda yelled as it accidentally stepped on a car, crushing it. “Do I need to remind you that you are a guest here?”

“Grenda, you don’t need to be that harsh,” Mabel said.

The monster pulled its leg off the car quickly. The roof was completely caved in, and Mabel heard the tinkling of glass falling away as the creature took another step.

“But, I mean, she is kind of right,” she said, looking straight up at the eye. “Maybe try to watch where you step? The town’s been through a lot already.” The green eye stared at her, making no move to show that it understood or even cared.

 

* * *

 

“Ta-da!” Mabel sang when they arrived. “This is the Gravity Falls lake!”

The creature stepped closer, its eye peering down into the water. A curious tentacle poked at the shimmering surface, creating ripples.

“Do you think he knows what water is?” Grenda whispered.

“I hope so,” Mabel said. “Otherwise we’ve got a long walk back to find some chicken.”

The eye shifted from the lake to the three girls, watching them for a moment. At first, Mabel wasn’t sure what it wanted, smiling back and waiting for it do so something. Realizing that it was waiting for the same, she waved her hands forward.

“Go ahead,” she said. “It’s totally safe. I mean, it went a little crazy last week, when a really big portal showed up overnight, but it’s okay now. Give it a try.”

The eye watched her for a moment longer before the creature suddenly leapt up into the air. Mabel watched it shoot up like a rocket, before twisting itself around in midair so that its tentacles pointed up to the sky. It rocketed straight down, landing in the water with such a splash that the wave soaked all three girls watching from the shore. As the water receded back to the lake, Mabel saw a few bubbles float to the surface.

“Do you think he’s okay?” she asked, looking to the others.

“There’s a lot of fish in the lake,” Candy said, mostly to herself. “Probably more than we could have gotten from the store anyway.”

Several more bubbles appeared, and then the creature’s head peaked above the water, its eye staring at the three. Mabel bounced in place and waved.

“Stay safe in there!” she called. “I have to go now, but we’ll all be back later to check on you!”

The green eye stared at her, just as it always did. Then, without so much as a wave, it dove beneath the surface again and was gone.

Mabel looked at her two friends. They looked at her. Now that they had finally put this problem behind them, Mabel knew that it was time to get on to the next, and hopefully last, part of a very long day.

“We’re going back to the junkyard, guys!” she said. “We’re going to go get Dipper back!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not much to say about this chapter, actually. We're on a straight road to the climax now, and this is the last Mabel chapter. I actually liked writing her a lot, so I'm a little bit sad to be parting ways. I dunno, though, maybe you all just want to find out what happened to Dipper. TBH, I wouldn't blame you, especially if you knew what's coming in the next chapter. Of course, I'm the only one with that info, so you're just going to have to wait until next week to find out ;)
> 
> Thanks to everyone who wished me well for senior year. The good news is that the homework load isn't so bad right now, so I am almost certain that the story can continue uninterrupted. Again, if you're ever worried about a delay, you can just check my [tumblr](instantduckballoons.tumblr.com) under the tag "never alone ever".


	10. Bill Was Dreaming

_Grabbing feeling gripping pulling tugging dragging ripping tearing yanking shoving shredding breaking breaking breaking pulling shattering losing falling holding forcing hugging growling fraying severing dwindling._

_Crashing breaking falling tumbling plunging watching diving plummeting screaming rolling shooting._

_Hoping wishing praying falling drifting, drifting…_

 

* * *

 

Nothing. No light, no darkness. No heat or cold. No life or void or anything, just nothing.

A light popped. Then again. Blue sparks flew into the void. They were swallowed. Another spark, one more, another.

A blue flame filled the empty, illuminating the nothing. Tiny black fingers flicked and played with it, moving it around. A bubble, maybe, an orb of nothing surrounded it. No edges, no stuffing. Just nothing.

Bill squinted and glanced around.

“I’m gone for a couple of days,” he said, “and _this_ is the mindscape I come back to?”

He floated forward into the nothing, going nowhere and not seeing anything new.

“Really,” he said, “this is a mess. Other demons can leave their realms, you know. Warner popped out of his for a couple human years when the black plague was in full swing, and everything was exactly the way he left it. I know, because I _tried_ to go mess it up, but it wouldn’t let me in.”

The emptiness rippled around him. He snapped at it with his free hand.

“Get over yourself,” he said. “I’ve got business to get back to, and I can’t work with this. Get yourself sorted out, or I’ll just have to go invade some lesser demon. I heard that there’s a life demon trying to make things happen on Mars. I’m sure that they could be persuaded to give up their space.”

There was another ripple around him, and Bill saw splotchy areas of grey start to bloom in the space around him. Indistinct shapes grew from nothing, blurry at first but growing clearer by the minute. Three spheres arranged in a triangle formation spun directly in front of Bill, and several large cubes floated in the space beside him.

“That’s more like it,” he said as grey ribbons started to fly through the air, looping and twirling around the more solid shapes. He saw something dart past his eye, and looked up to see dark grey blood dripping down from the black void. He offered it a thumbs up before returning to looking around his immediate surroundings.

“For future reference, I prefer to see dodecahedron’s being used to forcibly fill humans’ eye holes,” Bill said, referring to the elaborate wall decorations melting into existence, “but I suppose being impaled by one also works.”

As soon as Bill’s voice stopped filling the space, he heard another take its place. In a world where he was the only conscious being, it was strange to hear something that he was not already aware of. It was distant at first, a low roar like air escaping a tight container, but it grew louder by the second. Bill whipped around and was met with a wall of water.

The wave crashed into him and dragged him down, whipping him through the still-unfinished dimension. Walls moved quickly to get out of his way, but he was still bashed against several surfaces before being dragged off and flung back into the current. At first, he thought that something had gone wrong in the formation of the mindscape. It usually gave him at least a moment to get out of the way before it let loose such violent rapids. During a brief moment of peace, however, he was able to look closer at the water, and he noted that, even in its darker depths, it was lightly tinted blue. The tint of color proved, at least, that this was not a creation from the mindscape.

The accidental river pulled him along until at last it settled into a sudden dip. Bill hoisted himself out, dripping and sodden, and gazed down at the new pool. Water was still rushing in, and he had a feeling that the thing would flood before the current settled.

“That lake,” he growled. “What did I say? I knew all of that water would make a mess of this place.”

With a snap of his fingers, he lit his body on fire. The remaining drops on his surface hissed and evaporated, sending curls of steam up into a black void.

“I should have gotten a draught started before I went in,” he said. “That was my big mistake. Moisture never works well for these things. I really should have learned that after the Gulf of Mexico fiasco.” He looked around at the expanding horizon. New parts of the mindscape were coming into focus, including a large field of piles of junk. He floated nearer.

He hadn’t seen this place since he had last been in the mindscape, and he was pleased at how much stuff had accumulated in his absence. A whole field of junk pulled out of the physical world and placed in his. He felt it fair to call himself a master thief.

“Let’s see what I’ve collected so far…”

It was mostly dirt, it looked like. Dirt and rocks, and while it was fun to scare people by taking apart the foundation beneath their houses, they were hardly interesting on their own. Some piles, generally the largest, were made up entirely of dirt, but there were other things scattered around as well. Human trash, bits of plants, and pieces of human structures were all readily available, and Bill saw several squirrels and a raccoon dashing around. Way in the back, he could also see remnants of his earlier haul, whatever pieces he had left behind in his rush to finish his plan.

“You know, maybeI do need to be a little more patient,” he said. Of course, he was a being as old as the universe and infinitely more powerful than any human could possibly understand. The chances of character development for him were essentially none. If anything, he would just have to find a way to make time move a little bit faster.

“I might know a guy who can help me with that,” he muttered, looking through his new collection. He picked up a plank of wood off of a pile and watched it smoke and then burn in his hand. He held it for a long time, watching as it turned black and then crumbled into ash, spiraling down onto the ground. “Wait, no. He dissolved into the fabric of the universe two billion years ago. Keep forgetting that.”

Far above the piles, there were still a few portals left open. Every few seconds, something fell through, cascading through the air before landing on the piles below. Five of them were alight and illuminating the piles, so it took Bill a moment to notice the sixth, which was almost completely black. He floated up to the portal, avoiding the stream of dirt constantly raining down from it.

Although it was hard to visualize against the black background, Bill knew that it was larger than all of the other portals combined. It spun slowly, like a creature that struggled to carry its own girth, and the thick chunks of sediment that fell through were adding substantially to his yet meager pickings.

He stared at the monster portal for a long time. If one had already managed to grow to this size, then it might not matter what Warner had planned. There always had to come a point when a portal grew too large for humans to manage on their own. Although Bill didn’t think that this one was at that point yet, he had a feeling that it would only be a little bit longer. It just had to remain hidden for a few more hours.

He heard a scraping beneath him and looked down. He only saw a flash as something darted behind one of the piles.

Some of the creatures were considering making a run for it.

Bill moved aside, allowing them to make a jump if they wanted to. He liked to hang onto the little ones, like the rats and birds, because he it was always interesting to watch them react to their atoms blasting apart. It wasn’t even a problem keeping them, anyway, because he had yet to encounter a squirrel that had the power to fight against a portal between dimensions. The bigger ones, though, were a bit more of a problem. They always put up a fight when he was trying to turn them into pure energy, writhing around and clawing at him no matter the distance between them. It was fun at first, but after dealing with several hundred of them it had just gotten to be tedious. So, his general rule was that if something had the power to get itself out, then he would make no move to stop it. Although the rule didn’t apply so much to pure uranium golems, he didn’t care so much if a few carbon-based wrigglers forced their way out.

His thoughts stuttered on the word wriggler. Actually, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to tighten security in the future. Make sure none of the more dangerous ones got back onto the physical plane.

“No, that’s stupid,” he sighed. “Let them go. They’ll be less trouble out there. Pine Tree can deal with them, and if he can’t, well, it makes my job much easier.”

He looked down again, staring at the shapes moving around in the darkness. He could hear the sound of some dragging themselves across the ground, and the thump of something very large taking steps over the piles.

A flash of white at the corner of his vision mad Bill jump. He flew backwards before remembering that he was back in his normal form. He couldn’t be killed in the mindscape. That was pretty much the whole point of being an immortal being, after all.

He continued to drift away from the portals and piles, looking over the rest of the mindscape. His extended stay in a human body had taken a toll on both of them. The mindscape’s form was severely altered, all of the dreams and subconscious desires in serious disarray. Jumbles of deep secrets and worst fears lay spread across the ground, and he watched a grey piranha tear apart a young boy’s first crush.

“Once I take care of everything on Earth, I’m taking a few months off to sort this place out,” Bill said. “Maybe throw a couple new nightmares in.”

It was hard for him to get excited about the thought, though, knowing how much work was left to take care of with the whole portal business. Even if he did manage to keep Pine Tree from closing all of them, there was the problem of gathering up all of the stuff, and then making sure he had enough before he went blasting Warner again.

“ _Warner_ ,” he growled. Everything had been going fine until he had interfered. Why couldn’t he just face oblivion already? Of course, Bill had interrupted his work plenty of times, but there was always decent reason behind it, usually something to do with the fact that Warner’s humans were all delightfully paranoid. He would mess around with them for a little while before Warner chased him off and found some way to retaliate. That was how they did these things. It was no fun if they got in each other’s way before they had had a chance to set up their moves. If Warner hadn’t said anything to Pine Tree, then Bill could have been well on his way to complete takeover of Gravity Falls by now, instead of being stuck back in the mindscape without even enough power to get himself another body.

“Ugh, and Pine Tree’s even worse,” Bill muttered to nobody. “I mean, I knew the kid was dumb, but I didn’t think that it would ever be bad enough to mess me up.” Everything would have been so much simpler if Dipper had just played by the book. It was his fault with that dumb spell that Bill had been tempted to push the portals with his own power, and it had been that power that had alerted Warner to his actions. If Dipper had just taken care of it on his own, it might have taken a little longer, but at least Bill wouldn’t have had this whole mess to deal with.

It wasn’t too late, though. He had to remember that. So long as the portal stayed open, the plan might still work. Of course, now that Warner knew what was coming, he would be on the move when Bill took aim, but Bill could work with that. So long as he had the power, he could figure out the rest on his own.

Still, it was odd that his simple plan had become so complicated in just a few days. He wasn’t used to being blindsided like this, and he wondered for a moment if he was losing his touch. That, of course, was impossible, so it meant that something else had to have gone wrong along the way for everything to spiral out of control like this. Even after he got stuck in Pine Tree’s body, he should have been able to handle everything. So why hadn’t he?

He glanced back at the portals. Unlike the rest of the mindscape, in which time was a handy tool that could be manipulated to go as fast or slow as he liked, this area around the portals operated on the same time as on Earth, which meant that he was actually going to have to wait until something happened to move on with his plans. Might as well fill in the time figuring out exactly what went wrong.

He slowly drifted forward, and the scene started to change. Dark walls rose up around him, illuminated by flickering torches. The room he was in was full of desks but no chairs, and piles of charts and scrolls lay strewn across every surface. At the center lay his summoning circle, from which arose two gray figures.

The first was a copy of himself, just as gray as its surroundings and missing its pupil. He rushed forward to adjust the bowtie a tad, then drifted back to let the scene play out.

His copy was facing a short human man with sandy hair and dark bags under his eyes. He wore long, brown robes that got caught beneath his feet, but he had removed the hood at some point before Bill had actually appeared. He now gazed at Bill, quaking in his dully glowing presence.

“Hey bud!” Bill’s copy said, sounding slightly robotic but otherwise the same. “Where is everybody? I know that I haven’t been around much lately, but I figured that the other guys would still be hanging around. You really all that’s left?”

“N– No!” the young man cried, still shaking at the sight of Bill. “M– Master Fisher has been out for several days, on a journey to visit our brothers in the south. The others all went home a few hours ago, and left me to clean up the study.”

Bill had known all of this, of course. Given that the cult’s entire sense of interior decorating was based around his image, he barely had to turn his head to know whatever they were up to. Still, he had fun forcing humans to explain things to him.

“That’s a shame, then,” his copy continued, moving towards the terrified man. “I was really hoping that I could get some _help_ from my most loyal followers.”

“If i– it would not be too presumptuous of me, I could t– try to assist you, my lord,” the young man said.

Bill’s copy seemed to consider it for a moment.

“I dunno, it’s kind of a big thing I’m asking for,” he said. “I know that you still haven’t been fully initiated, so you still have the choice to back out if you want. If you do me a solid now, then you’re pretty much declaring your undying loyalty.”

“I’d do it!” the young man said quickly. “I have been studying your teachings for months, my lord. I am fully prepared to take whatever oath you would ask of me. I will promise my very soul for you, should you request it.”

“Woah there, bud, slow down,” Bill’s copy said. “If you were really well-versed in my teachings, you would know that your soul is an important bargaining chip. You shouldn’t be throwing it around at the first opportunity you get.” The young man’s face fell, and Bill felt the same sense of glee that he had the first time he’d gone through this.

“O– of, c– c– course, my lord,” the man said, the shaking getting even worse. “I apologize, that was foolish of me. Obviously, I still have much to learn before I can compare to the likes of Master Fisher.”

“Hey, no worries, bud,” Bill’s copy said, drifting forward and putting an arm around the guy. “We’ve all been new to something at one point or another.” That was a lie. “But you know, I like your attitude, and I think you’re the best one here for the job.”

“Really, my lord?” the young man asked, perking up immediately.

“Sure!” Bill’s copy said. “I’m only going to give your instructions once, though, so pay attention. I’d _hate_ to have to come back here because it was too difficult for you.”

“Of course, my lord, I wouldn’t dream of it. Um.” The young cult member looked around the messy room, searching through the piles with his eyes. “Perhaps if I write it down…” Then, remembering that they were in the mindscape, where no physical object would be able to leave, he shook his head. “I apologize. Please, when you are ready.”

“Okay, and don’t stress yourself out so much, kid,” Bill’s copy said, offering a sharp slap between the shoulder blades before drifting back over to the summoning circle. “I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t know your group could handle it. Even if you’re new, I’m sure you’ll do just fine.” The purr in Bill’s voice had been intentional. Now, even with the demon’s praise, the young man was even more on edge, desperate to keep the good name of his sect.

“It’s a simple thing I’m looking for. I just need you to go to Gravity Falls, somewhere nice and public, and draw this symbol on the ground.” He traced it out in the air, adding a few complicated embellishments that were unnecessary to the spell but sure to drive the young man crazy trying to remember them all. “Then, recite a few words in Latin, and we’ll be good to go. You got all that?”

“Yes, my lord,” the young man said. “But, uh, about the words–”

“Oh, yeah, and once you’re finished, try to get back here pretty quick,” Bill said. “You’ll probably have to hide out for a couple days. Maybe weeks. You know what? Give it a month. Spend the time actually learning my teachings, maybe?”

“I will, of course, my lord. But the exact words–”

“And that’s all the time I’ve got,” Bill said, pointing to a clock that had popped into the space beside him. “I’ve got to go meet a guy about a dozen severed heads. Do a good job, and I’ll be sure to put in a good word the next time I swing around. Just _don’t mess up_ , okay?”

“ _My lord_ ,” the young man cried, just as Bill popped out of existence. The memory faded to black, leaving Bill cracking up just as he had the first time around.

Oh, the way that kid had worried about it the whole way to Gravity Falls, it was marvelous. Bill had watched him panic all the way, wringing his hands and talking to himself incessantly. Of course, as soon as he got to the place Bill had wanted, it was a simple matter to put the words right inside the boy’s mind, but it had been so much fun watching him pull out his hair on the way.

Even after the first portal had opened up successfully, Bill never had gone back to the recruit. With everything that had happened with Pine Tree, he’d never had a chance to do so. It was kind of frustrating, having a real excuse. It would have been a lot more fun to say that he didn’t go back on purpose, especially since the kid got in trouble for not getting the study cleaned up. Maybe he would go back later and blame the guy for everything that went wrong afterwards. It might be kind of funny, at least.

Bill sighed. He just couldn’t get himself excited about human misery. A part of him almost hoped that Pine Tree would find the portal already, so that then they could be done with this whole business and Bill could take a vacation. Maybe go possess a prisoner of the United States or something.

He glanced back at the portals. Still, nothing had changed. Might as well keep going through his memories while he was waiting.

Having seen nothing wrong in his dealings with the first cult member, Bill had to assume that it started with Pine Tree. The kid had gotten the better of him somehow, possible without having realized it himself. When could it have been?

He looked forward, to their meeting in the woods near Pine Tree’s home. Bill had known what the boy was doing as soon as he left his great uncle’s house, but he hadn’t pulled him into the mindscape immediately. He just wanted to know if Pine Tree would really go through with it, and sure enough, he had.

The deal went just as Bill remembered it. Dipper asked him about the portals, Bill’s copy assured him that they were extremely dangerous.

“So, right now, I’m willing to give you the answer you’re looking for on the house. Sound good?”

Bill paused the memory. He had made the offer thinking that Pine Tree would have accepted it without question. He didn’t usually offer freebies, and most of the time humans were quick to accept them. If Pine Tree had just acted like a normal person, he would have grabbed the spell and run off to start spreading portals throughout the world.

“No,” Pine Tree said. “I’m not interested in handouts. I want to make a deal.”

If he hadn’t said just those words, everything else would have been so much easier. He’d been going through some weird control thing when they made the deal, though, and Bill had been so excited to exploit it that he hadn’t noticed that anything was different about his favorite puppet. Bill had known already that Pine Tree was planning something, but he hadn’t thought that it might actually affect his plans in any way. Give him a couple days of entertainment, perhaps, but change everything he’d been working on? Bill hadn’t thought a human was capable of it.

So the deal went through, and he’d gotten stuck in a body with Pine Tree, which was much more cramped than he had expected. He didn’t like to admit that the trick had caught him off guard some, but it had, and in his surprise a tiny seed of panic had appeared, and it drove him to try to kill Pine Tree. At least he’d been lucky enough that the human body had defenses against death by self-suffocation, otherwise he would still be stuck in a rotting meat suit.

No, it was definitely better that things had gone the way they did, Bill thought as the memory faded to black. Even this whole complicated mess was better than being stuck in a dead body for however many years. He had a feeling that it would have been cold. Also cramped, had Pine Tree ended up in a coffin. Cremation was also an option, though, dry and hot and smoky.

As much as Bill loved fire, the thought of it sent a shiver through him.

He moved away from the memories and back towards the piles of Earth stuff. They were growing, but not quickly, and Bill wondered how long he had before Warner’s allies arrived. By now, he had to have found out what happened, that his plan had worked, and that Bill was back in the mindscape. If there was ever a good time to get back at him, it was now, when his energy was still somewhat drained from getting back here and he had a while yet until the portal dragged in enough stuff to power up a suitable blast.

He hadn’t been kidding when he told Pine Tree that he needed a body to hide out in for a little while, but he wasn’t sure that he would be able to find a new one now on such short notice. At this point, the portals were definitely his best bet. Pine Tree just needed to be delayed a little bit longer, and Bill would be home free.

“What’s that kid up to, anyway?” he asked. After getting ejected from Pine Tree’s body rather rudely, he hadn’t seen what happened to the boy himself. Of course, he assumed that after all the stress, he’d probably passed out, but Bill still wondered where the kid was now.

He cast open his many eyes, focusing on the little town of Gravity Falls. Although he could see through all of his eyes at once, it took him a moment to search through his visions and find the one pointed at Pine Tree.

He was up, and speaking to some of the people from Gravity Falls. Bill didn’t like the sound of his words, all of this stuff about protecting people and fixing his mistakes. Of course Pine Tree would be the first to suggest that they do something about the growing problem, but Bill had hoped that he would at least put it off for a couple more hours. For the self-proclaimed protector of their body, Pine Tree was certainly eager to throw it straight back into danger.

Gosh, it was nice being an immortal being with no physical body. Things like health and safety could always take a backseat to pain and chaos.

Except, of course, in this instance, when several demons with sort-of comparable power to his own were on their way over with the intent to annihilate him.

This whole thing sure had been a lot more fun before it all got so complicated.

Bill heard the scuffling beneath him again, and looked down at the moving shapes below him.

“Wouldn’t hurt to give them a few more obstacles,” he said, floating back down to the ground.

A large pair of black jaws reached up from the darkness and caught him around the middle. Bill, surprised at the sudden attack, sent a jet of flames down the creature’s throat, forcing it to release him as it wailed.

No, Bill realized, it wasn’t wailing. It was whistling.

He looked over the strong jaws and the jets of poisonous gas shooting from its rear. He straightened his bow tie and adjusted his hat, keeping his distance from the creature as it thrashed about.

“You’ll do for a distraction,” he said. The ground beneath the creature started to rise, lifting it up and up into the void until it was directly below one of the smaller portals. It stared up at it for a moment, still whistling, before leaping up and shoving itself through. Bill watched it go, slightly amused at its enthusiasm. The creature was strong here, and very hardy, but the journey back to Earth would likely sap it of a great deal of strength. The creature that Pine Tree faced would likely be a much weaker version of the one he’d just seen.

With that business completed, Bill went back to his memories, skipping through the first day entirely. That whole thing had gone according to plan, the portal even spreading beyond his expectations. Pine Tree had completely bought into the idea of locking the portal closed, and everything had gone smoothly. Bill had been more enthusiastic about the plan than he had when he first came up with it.

Then the next day had started, beginning with their inability to walk. Bill had known that the portals were already out and doing their business, but his hope had been that they could let them mature for a day or two before they went and split them up again. Pine Tree, though, always eager to solve a problem, and needed something to keep himself busy during that time, and researching the solution to their “problem” had seemed just the thing to keep him occupied and away from the portals. Besides, as a near-omniscient being, it had been entertaining to watch the kid struggle to put together a mystery that Bill already knew the answer to.

And then, a portal had opened up in the lake and completely thrown him off his game for a while. Because, as he now saw, all of the water getting sucked in had created a terrible mess in the mindscape, and it would be ages before he could get rid of it all. The appearance of the eyeball had also been unsettling. He hadn’t liked the way Pine Tree’s heart pounded when the boiling water came within feet of them. It hadn’t hurt them, which was even worse. A vague fear of pain with no reward was somehow worse than just disappointment. Then, he’d had to go and weaken himself getting the thing to stop, and he hadn’t been able to spread out the portal after he’d successfully closed it.

That hadn’t been one of his best days, for sure.

Still, there was nothing he could see that would have led to everything falling apart the way it had. Even letting Pine Tree witness his powers in action shouldn’t have had any big effect on the overall plan. He was missing something, some point when things started to fall apart.

Bill heard a great crashing behind him, and turned around to see what it was. Out of the void, a larger creature had emerged, probably spurred on by the promise of freedom coming from the large portal. Its large black tentacles were sliding through the landscape, knocking over the piles as it went. Bill watched the other beasts scatter before its massive limbs, and he felt a touch of pride for having grabbed something so huge.

He was so busy admiring the creature as it stroked the edges of the portal that he failed to realize for a moment that there were only five left. When he finally did realize, he couldn’t even feel surprise. Of course Pine Tree was making an effort to stop him. That was just what the kid _did_. The most important thing was that the largest portal was still open and spinning. That thought, plus the giant creature still judging its chances of getting through, gave Bill a small burst of confidence.

Just a little bit longer, and Pine Tree would stop being a problem. Just a little bit longer.

He skipped past the rest of the week, seeing that it was more of the same of that second day. Defeating monsters, closing up portals, and not letting on that he was busy making more. There had been some days when the act had been harder than others, but Pine Tree had been too desperate to ever notice.

And then he came to the day just previous. As soon as they stepped into the shack, he had known that the portal was not one of his own, but he had still pushed his magic to try to close it, using a spell that was only meant for his own portals. Perhaps it had been an illogical move, but the whole thing had happened so quickly that he hadn’t really had a chance to think it through. And then, they had been falling, down and down and down.

“Did we die?” the memory of Pine Tree asked as their body tumbled through empty space. “The whole time you were talking about not wanting to be stuck in my body after I died, is this what you were talking about? Is this what it’s going to be like from now on?”

“We’re not dead,” Bill’s copy through Pine Tree’s mouth. It sounded harsher than Bill had intended it at the time, but the human voice added a strange layer to it that made the speaker almost seem alien to Bill. He disliked the bizarre combination, and wondered if it had grated on anyone else’s nerves.

And then the voices had started, the dreadful symphony of human emotion that linked Warner to reality. Although Bill wasn’t and never had been a life demon, he knew that that was the clamor they heard constantly. Unlike Bill, who could turn his eyes on and off at will, Warner was constantly seeing the world through his creations’ eyes. For a self-proclaimed demon of order especially, the whole thing seemed a tad too chaotic.

Bill himself wasn’t fond of the noise, and that was really something. The sound seemed to grind into him while suffocating him at the same time, and wasn’t _that_ an unpleasant feeling. So, it hadn’t been hard for him to deduct that Pine Tree wasn’t having a good time of it either. And Bill knew that if he didn’t do anything, then the human might start doing those pathetic little whimper things with their shared mouth, and that’s not what he wanted his first impression with Warner to be like.

So, he’d done the human affection thing and wrapped their arms around their midsection.

He didn’t like the look on Pine Tree’s face when he’d done that. He felt a strange feeling build up in him, and it took him a moment to recognize it for regret, seeing as he so rarely made a single mistake in his work.

He didn’t like regret. He didn’t like any of this memory.

Bill skipped ahead a bit, leaping through the conversation with Warner very quickly. It went just as terribly as he’d felt at the time, and that of course led right into that terrible hedge maze in his mind. His minions had figured out the secret to the maze for him, and then he had run into Pine Tree, literally.

Bill couldn’t deny it. What followed had definitely been the most awkward attempt at a deal he had ever made.

“Do you honestly think I’m a moron? Do you honestly think I’m a moron? Do you honestly–”

Bill stopped the memory and then pushed it forward a bit. Pine Tree’s accusation had caught him off guard, and even his blank copy seemed uncomfortable with the conversation.

Bill didn’t think Pine Tree was stupid. For a human, at least, the kid clearly had some smarts, especially considering that he had gotten all the way to the shack before Warner had derailed their plans. Bill had just never had to deal with the delicate game of human trust. He didn’t know that humans had so many rules about trust and how difficult it was to repair. Had he realized ahead of time, he would have made a better case for himself, proved to Pine Tree that he was telling the truth.

Not that it mattered now. In a few hours, all of this would be another memory. Gravity Falls, Pine Tree, Warner, all of them.

All the same, Bill couldn’t tear his eyes away from the conversation. He kept wishing that he had said something better, that he could have made Pine Tree realize what a mistake the kid was making, but it was no good.

“No, Bill. I don’t trust you, so I’m not making another deal with you.”

The words wee said with such finality that they even surprised the present Bill. He couldn’t believe that this was the same kid that he had met in his great uncle’s head, but then, there was no one else in the universe so infuriating.

Bill knew what happened next, but he still wasn’t ready for it. In his surprise, he had relaxed his concentration for the moment, and Pine Tree had spotted an opening. In an instant, Bill’s vision had been filled with millions of deadly white spines, the creature’s head already preparing to swing at him.

His thoughts stopped altogether as he faced the creature again, cold seeping through him as he stared at the spines. The creature swung. Bill turned and fled.

He burst out of the memory, tore through the mindscape. He zigzagged between giant pillars. He dove into empty tunnels. He threw dreams and nightmares in his wake, anything that would keep that _thing_ from ever reaching him.

Bill was deep in the mindscape before he finally slowed down and forced himself to think. His body was humming with energy, but it lacked the powerful heartbeat that had always accompanied wild chases in Pine Tree’s body.

Bill stopped, stared straight ahead, and walloped himself just above the eye.

“I don’t _have_ a heart,” he groaned. As if to prove his point, the punch didn’t leave any pain behind, his little fist bouncing harmlessly off the surface. “I’m an immortal being of pure energy. There is no reason for me to be afraid of physical danger.”

But if his violent reaction was any clue, Bill had a feeling that he’d found what he’d been looking for. Clearly, he hadn’t come away from the physical world completely unchanged. Being co-owner of a physical body had apparently caused a few basic instincts to rub off on him, the simplest of which being: Stay Alive. Bill had watched humans long enough to know that their most dramatic reactions tended to be in the face of something trying to kill them, and apparently fear, the most basic human emotion of all, had found its way into Bill’s psyche.

Luckily, a couple days back in the mindscape would be sure to cleanse him of the rather uncomfortable feeling, but it still concerned him a bit. He didn’t know how something so powerful had affected him without his knowledge, and Bill Cipher hated not knowing things. The feeling of ignorance was so foreign to him that he didn’t know how to react, besides go back to the memories and figure out how it had happened at all.

The journey back was much shorter than the other way. He was a bit disappointed to find that another portal had been shut in his absence. Pine Tree and his friends were definitely committed to their role, although they had still failed to uncover the actual threat. A little bit longer, then.

Bill approached his memories once more. He knew that Warner was on his way, and that he should have been preparing, but now he had to know more. If he couldn’t know, then he would at least assemble enough information that he could pretend to know. Power wise, it was almost surprising how often the two were interchangeable.

He cycled back through the memories, back to the one he’d very purposefully skipped his first time through. He came to his third day with Pine Tree, the day that he had known that none of the portals were very large yet but Pine Tree had insisted on going out anyway. The one they had found was pathetically small, really, and Bill knew that the spell did as much good as closing up one portal and gently nudging it somewhere else. Pine Tree had insisted, though, and Bill hadn’t had any way to convince him otherwise without outing his secret. So he had gone along with the idea, traveling out behind the Mystery Shack and closing up the little thing.

And that took him to the point when Shooting Star had appeared before them, the fright on her face comparable to that of the children Bill sometimes preyed upon.

“Dipper,” she said, rudely ignoring the second inhabitant of their body. “There’s something you really, really need to see.”

Bill now saw a brief look of excitement pass over Pine Tree’s face, before it was covered up by the usual dread. When they first saw the trail, Bill had been excited about the prospects. Creatures in the modern day were never nearly as dangerous as they had been several million years before, and he’d been looking forward to one that could cause some real destruction. And Pine Tree, nervous and mortal though he was, was completely on board with the idea of charging right at the thing.

When the memory finally revealed the caterpillar, Bill was surprised at the willpower it took to hold his ground. Even knowing that the creature was a projection, Bill couldn’t forget the sound of blood pounding in their ears as they ran, and the way their breath had burned in their chest with every stride. He imagined plants dropping dead just before it happened right before his eye. It was a bizarre feeling, stronger than he had realized in the heat of the moment.

And little Pine Tree was rolling with it, leaping and ducking to avoid the barrage of deadly spines filling the air. His mortal body came within inches of instant death, but he never let on that he was afraid. He just did whatever it took to keep himself and Shooting Star alive.

Another feeling, far stranger than fear, rose up inside of Bill, and he was struck for a moment, because he had never known anything quite like it. The memory faded as he stopped focusing on it, the sound of footsteps and panting breath dulling to something very far away and unimportant.

“Pine Tree’s not too bad,” he said. “I mean, it’s stupid of course, to face something like that when you’ve only got one life to live. Pine Tree’s not completely moronic, though. He has to know that it’s dangerous, and he takes the risk anyway, because…”

Because Shooting Star mattered to him? Because Gravity Falls mattered? Neither of them actually knew the risks this kid went to to save them, yet he went through with it anyway. The action was almost…

“Admirable,” Bill said. That was the strange feeling, then. He couldn’t say that he’d felt it before, but he couldn’t help it now. Living in a human body, feeling that fear, watching Pine Tree power through it, the whole thing had been admirable. Stupid, for sure, but not worthlessly so.

Bill wished that it was another effect of being trapped, but he knew that it wasn’t. Although he knew that Pine Tree felt admiration for a number of people, no matter how bad he was at expressing it, he’d never felt it strongly enough for it to have rubbed off onto Bill. This was all demon, which meant that it wasn’t going to be something that just vanished with time. Pine Tree, little twelve year-old Pine Tree who had cried at the end of Marley and Me, was one of the only humans in history to impress him.

Well, this was going to have to remain a secret. Who knew how big the kid’s head would get if he ever found out about that.

A thought pulled his attention back to the portals. It wouldn’t matter soon, anyway. Once Gravity Falls was completely pulled into the mindscape, they would likely never see each other again. Of course, Bill would keep an eye on him, but he doubted that he would ever be able to get another deal out of Pine Tree once he’d completely destroyed his home. That human trust thing sure did limit their options sometimes.

He drew himself back to the portals to watch the largest one, pulling more stuff in as it grew. The tentacle beast was still nearby, observing the same portal, not wanting to escape until it knew where it was going.

Just a little bit longer before it would be too strong for Pine Tree to stop it, and Gravity Falls would be toast. Bill knew that Pine Tree would stay until the very end, but hopefully Shooting Star would be able to influence him to get away before it got too dangerous. Pine Tree loved the town, but he loved his sister even more. If she put herself in danger to get him away, then he would listen.

“You got that, Shooting Star?” Bill asked. “The kid isn’t totally stupid, but he is reckless. You’ve got to make sure he doesn’t kill himself over something he can’t fix.”

He didn’t care about Pine Tree, not really. He just wanted to see what he would be like as an adult. Probably insufferable, but maybe a little bit clever as well.

With that thought, Bill started preparing for the inevitable showdown. Warner’s minions were undoubtedly on their way, and although there was nothing Bill could do to prevent access to demons who wanted it, there was plenty he could do to make their experience dreadful. He pulled out his favorite nightmares, horrors long forgotten to humanity that still lurked in the shadows of the subconscious.

Large, lumbering beasts with hundreds of teeth stalked the halls, and the walls were alive with snapping jaws and blinking eyes. Little creatures with yellow slits for eyes sat in the corners, waiting for unsuspecting prey to draw near, and near-dead corpses lay scattered across every floor, wailing for death that would never come. On every surface and in every substance imaginable, Bill painted his likeness, so that those that entered were always under his surveillance. Of course, since the midnscape belonged to him, he was able to see them regardless, but it was satisfying to have the constant reminder.

As a finishing touch, Bill decorated the sky of void with a blood-red moon, tweaking the image just a bit so that its face appeared to scream. The color reminded him of fine wines being flushed down toilets in panic, and screams as doors burst open like canons. He hoped that the others would get the right idea.

At the same time that Bill was putting together the mindscape, he was aware that Pine Tree was also hard at work on the other side of the portals. One by one, they vanished from the sky, until all that remained was the giant one, still black as the void. So long as it stayed black, everything would be alright. If it was hidden, then there was no way Pine Tree could find it until it was too late.

Bill was far off when he finally heard the boom of lots of debris falling at once. Right away, he knew that the portal had broken free of its hiding place, and he zoomed back to observe the wreckage.

A massive pile of dirt, rocks, and trash now lay on the ground. Very little light got down through the portal, but it was enough for Bill to know that it was now pointed towards the sky. The tentacled beast had flinched back when everything started to fall, but now it approached once again, its green eye pointed up at the sky so far above them.

Peering up, Bill wasn’t surprised to see the dust cloud obscuring the way up, and even less so to catch a glimpse of two eyes looking back down at him. Pine Tree had figured it out, then. Another pair of eyes revealed that Shooting Star was also up there, although they’d been somewhat separated by the opened fissure. Still, it was good to know that she was nearby. Shooting Star would know how to keep her brother from trying anything really stupid.

The tentacle monster, desperate now to get back into the real world, shifted. Standing on four of its legs, it rose up to push the other two up against the portal. It strained for a moment before it got one through, and then the other. Bill watched with idle fascination as the creature raised itself up, stretching its legs up higher and higher. Although the image was blurry, Bill could see one of its tentacles shooting straight up towards the sky.

Well, if Shooting Star failed to keep her brother away from the portal, then surely that would be enough to get those kids away from here. Bill had no doubt that Pine Tree would whine and complain about how it was his duty to save Gravity Falls or die trying and yada yada, but there was little they could do if a giant monster didn’t want them to.

Bill turned away, content with what he’d seen. Shooting Star would get them away before the ground became too unstable. The portal would keep growing. Warner’s goons wouldn’t know what hit them. Bill had been worried when Pine Tree had figured out the separation spell, but as it turned out, everything was going fine regardless. All of the recent surprises had made him briefly forget that he was an immortal being of pure energy with no weaknesses, so it felt nice to have a little reminder. Maybe he really would get that vacation after all.

The creature tensed. It squinted its eye in concentration and shifted its weight. Its leg had been gripping the edge up above, but now it had come loose, inspecting something in the air far above them.

Bill turned around. If he’d had a heart, it would have dropped out of him.

Pine Tree was falling. Not fast and not slow, but he was falling, falling, the air whipping his hair as he tumbled down. Bill could only stare as the boy came closer and closer, when before he had been safely far away.

He could only stare. He couldn’t do anything. If he closed the portal, Pine Tree’s mortal body would be dashed on the ground below. But if he left it open, then Pine Tree would come here. His physical body would be in the mindscape, just like the squirrels and monsters and Bill himself.

And still, Pine Tree was falling, and Bill was staring, and the monster was straining to reach the sky, and Bill didn’t know what to do. Should he be merciful? He could see in his mind’s eye Pine Tree shattering on the ground, hear Shooting Star’s wails as she looked down on her broken brother. It would be a short death to end a short life.

Would the alternative be any better? Was there an alternative?

An earlier thought wormed its way back into Bill’s mind unbidden. He was still curious to see what the kid would grow into. Pine Tree wasn’t stupid. He had a head for questions, and although he still needed to work on asking the right ones, Bill knew that it would take him far in life. Pine Tree certainly wasn’t better than any other human. He didn’t _deserve_ to live a long life. The fact was, Bill just kind of wanted him to.

_Oof_ , he thought. _That’s going to take some getting used to_.

But, there was his decision. Bill watched Pine Tree fall down and down, until he fell so far that he dropped out of his own world and into another. Bill, to his credit, tried to at least make sure that the landing was a soft one.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just hang in there guys, we're getting back to Pine Tree next chapter, I promise!
> 
> I can't believe there are only two chapters left! Wow, thanks to everyone who has stuck around this long, you guys are seriously amazing. I'm almost excited about having the whole thing over and done with, but it's going to be really weird to not have to think about it anymore. I've spent the past couple of months planning/writing/editing every day, and it's so strange to know that it's all coming to an end soon, especially considering just how long this darn thing is. Have I mentioned that it's officially the longest work I've ever written? I probably have, but it still blows my mind. There's no way I could have done it all without you guys, so thank you so much!
> 
> 'Til next week!


	11. One Promise More

Dipper sat up slowly. His head was pounding and his heart was racing, but it was hard for him to really care about either, because _he wasn’t dead_.

At least, he was pretty sure that he wasn’t. He could feel all the way to the tips of his fingers and toes, and his mind still seemed to be in working order, all of his thoughts arranged just the way he wanted them. His lungs were still a little bit sore from being squeezed so tight, but otherwise he seemed to be uninjured.

“Great. Alright, good,” he said, lightly touching his face to make sure it was still there. Yep, his mouth was exactly where he remembered it being. “Glad that I’ve got that settled. Now to figure out where I am.”

He said it hopeful that something would answer his question for him, but nothing did. Instead, he gazed into a deep darkness. Something told him that the world around him stretched infinitely in every direction, but it was hard to know for sure given how little he could see. The light in this place wasn’t great, and he realized why as he looked up.

Almost all of the light was coming from the portal spinning above his head, the blue sky still gazing down at him. The creature that had grabbed him was halfway through it, its monstrous body extending far above Dipper’s head and up to the edge of the hole he’d fallen down. As he looked up, he thought he saw a flicker of movement, and he realized a moment later that it must have been Mabel.

“Mabel!” he yelled, jumping up. The ground beneath his feet sagged, but he didn’t notice it much. “I’m okay! Stay where you are!” He knew that it was hopeless even as the words left his mouth. Mabel would not have been able to hear him if they were in the same dimension, given the massive distance between them. Trying to shout through the portal was a waste of time.

He glanced around the space. He just needed to find a way out before Mabel found a way in. The good news was that he had already seen plenty of monsters get through the things already. If they could figure it out, then he was certain that he would be able to as well. He briefly thought of hitching a ride on the monster already making its way out, but decided against it. Given the chance that he would be shaken off again, he didn’t want to bother wasting his time. No, he just had to figure out the trick to getting out on his own.

He still didn’t know where he was, although he had a pretty good guess. The area immediately around him was a mess. Garbage and dirt littered the ground, most of it congregating into large mounds that were taller than he was. He had landed on one right in the middle which, oddly enough, had a large gray mattress sitting on top. Dipper didn’t remember seeing a mattress fall in earlier.

He stepped off the mattress and slid down the rubble. At the bottom, instead of hitting solid floor, his feet splashed into water. He flinched and jumped back out, but the damage was already done. His sneakers were totally soaked through, and he could already feeling the wetness between his toes.

“Seriously?” He glared at his shoe, and then at the water. Neither cared.

Grumbling, Dipper stepped back into the water, letting his shoes fill the rest of the way. It was uncomfortable to wear them like this, but he didn’t feel comfortable going barefoot with all of the sharp edges lying around. He sloshed through the water, sending up sprays that splashed against his shorts. His feet were getting cold already, but he didn’t let it stop him.

He didn’t even know what he was looking for, really. Some way to get himself up to the portal, first of all. Ideas like a ladder or a rope came to mind, but he doubted that either would be long enough to reach all the way up. It didn’t even matter much anyway, given that he couldn’t find anything even resembling a step stool.

His search yielded frustratingly little, and after fifteen minutes of wandering he sat down on the nearest pile he could find. His sneakers were totally soaked, and it felt gross to keep walking around in them. There was also a headache throbbing just behind his eyes, and he had a feeling that he only had to fall backwards to fall asleep.

The worst part was not that he had found nothing to get him out of here. The worst part were the grey shapes on the horizon. They twirled and undulated perpetually just beyond the piles of junk, but Dipper couldn’t seem to get any closer to them. Ten minutes of walking in one direction didn’t decrease his distance from them, but they were always there, spinning across the horizon. Dipper knew that there was something special about them, but he had no idea what they were, and it soon became apparent that he never would.

That left him with one conclusion: there was nothing that could get him out of here. No ladder or rope or anything that could get him out. The big tentacled thing had drawn back down for a few minutes, after having seemingly lost its grip on the patch of land it had mistaken Dipper for. Now, it was back up and trying again, but it didn’t seem to be having much luck. Dipper watched it for a moment more before he really did lie back, letting his back press against the wet dirt.

“This sucks,” he said to the black sky above him. A red moon stared down at him, and it gave him a shiver of unease. “I don’t know where exactly I am or how I’m supposed to get out of here. I don’t know what happened to Mabel after I fell. I don’t know anything about this place, except that it belongs to Bill and he’s probably watching me right now, waiting for me to do something stupid.” He scraped up some dirt in his fingers and squished it in his palm. “I mean, why else would he let me survive the fall? That mattress definitely wasn’t in the trash with us, which can only mean that he put it there. And why else would he let me survive than to torment me in his own dimension?”

The sky said nothing. The red moon reminded Dipper of Bill’s eye, but no slit pupil appeared on its surface. It was just the man on the moon, who looked like he was in pain, now that Dipper looked closer.

“Are you going to come out soon?” he asked. There was a small rumble as a giant tentacle slid through a pile of junk, but otherwise nothing changed. “I’m serious, Bill. I’m tired of playing games with you. You obviously want something, so just get it over with already.”

“Fine.” With a puff of smoke and a _bang_ , Bill appeared in front of Dipper. Compared to the usual sarcastic remarks and gory fanfare, this appearance was pretty subdued for Bill. He hung in the air just in front of Dipper with his arms hanging limply beneath him. Even his hat seemed to be off, slumping over a tad and threatening to slide right off.

“That’s it?” Dipper asked, trying his best to ignore the change in demeanor. “No ancient puzzle for me to solve? You’re not going to dangle me over a vat of boiling grease until I scream?”

“No, Pine Tree,” Bill said, his tone sharp enough to cut off the rest of Dipper’s thoughts. “We need to talk.”

Dipper didn’t like how serious Bill sounded. Dipper was trying his best to keep Gravity Falls safe, but he had to admit that Bill was very close to winning. All he had to do was keep Dipper in this place a little too long, and the portal might grow large enough to destroy the whole town.

The creature before him did not appear to be one on the verge of winning anything, much less a prize that others had fought so hard to keep him from. Bill almost seemed somber, and it put Dipper on alert, waiting for the moment when the mask came off and Bill’s true intentions emerged.

Dipper sat up, his legs anticipating any moment he might have to leap up.

“We’ve already done a lot of talking,” he said.

“I know,” Bill said. “Our last conversations didn’t go very well, and I guess that there are some good reasons for that.”

Dipper averted his eyes from Bill, but he could still feel the slit pupil trained on him, gazing between the strands of hair on his forehead to the symbol that lay below. Ever since he was little, he had been able to tell when people were looking for it, and right now he could practically feeling Bill’s gaze roaming across it.

“Yeah,” he said, still looking away.

Bill disappeared from the corner of his vision, and Dipper turned just in time to see the demon settle down beside him. Now that they were on level ground, Dipper was a little bit surprised at how small Bill was. The demon had a very imposing presence when he was up in the air, but sitting next to Dipper, he realized that Bill really was very small. His hat only just reached Dipper’s chest, and he knew that the demon would appear even tinier if they both stood up on their legs

“What are you doing?” he asked, scooting away a few inches. Bill made no move to follow him.

“Humans are really odd,” he said, looking up at Dipper. The boy looked away, although he kept track of Bill in his peripherals. “And I don’t mean that as a demon. I mean, in the context of the entire multiverse, humans are completely unique. I have never met any creature with so many rules and practices. I can’t possibly imagine how you manage it.”

“It’s not like it’s hard,” Dipper said. He got the sense that his species wasn’t being complimented, and it ruffled his feathers a little bit. He would be one of the first to admit that humans had done some pretty messed up stuff, but he disliked hearing it from a being that made his living off of terrifying children. “We’re taught how to behave pretty early on, and then it just becomes kind of natural for us. I mean, you sort of managed it for a few days. Granted, I was there with you to keep you from doing anything really stupid, but you never let on to anyone that you aren’t a human. We’re not really that weird.”

“Ah, yes, my week being a human,” Bill said. “Look how well that ended.”

“You mean the way you stabbed me in the back and tried to destroy everything I care about?” Dipper said. He meant to put a growl behind his words, but he couldn’t get up the anger. Most of it had been spent already, first in Bill’s dream and then running around town trying to undo the rest of the damage. He knew that he was going to be exhausted when all of this was over, but for right now, the last dregs of his fury were just managing to keep him on his feet.

Bill didn’t talk for a minute, and finally Dipper’s curiosity was enough to get him to look over again. the demon was staring out into the void, although he didn’t seem to be looking at anything in particular. His gaze was soft, and it struck Dipper that the demon almost looked as tired as he supposed he should have been feeling.

“Bill?”

“Be quiet, Pine Tree,” Bill said. “I’m doing a human thing.”

Dipper furrowed his eyebrows and leaned away.

“What human thing?” _Being a jerk?_

“Thinking,” Bill said.

Dipper wanted to roll his eyes, but he resisted the urge. He was tired of figuring out Bill’s games. He was tired with all of this, really. The guilt and the duty, he didn’t want it anymore. He didn’t even care what it cost. At this point, he just wanted it to be over with.

“Can you just tell me what you want already?” he asked. “Like, I’m pretty sure that Mabel is going to be pretty freaked out right now, and I’d like to get back soon so that she doesn’t worry too much.”

Bill shot him what Dipper was pretty sure was a glare, although it didn’t have the same malice that Dipper was used to. Like the rest of Bill’s appearance, it seemed more tired than anything else. Dipper had to wonder what had happened since they split that could have made an immortal demon look like this, and he felt a brief flash of worry that it might come for him next. He glanced around again, but aside from the tentacle monster, he couldn’t see anything nearby that had the intention to hurt them.

“I didn’t have a lot of time to think this over, Pine Tree,” Bill said. “Believe me, if we were in the mindscape proper, I would have adjusted time so that we could skip all of the awkward pauses, and probably the parts where you talk, just because.” It was Dipper’s turn to glare, and Bill ignored it just as easily. “But for now we’re stuck here, in this lovely little bubble of destruction.”

“And what exactly is this place?” Dipper asked, remembering too late that he was supposed to be angry. His inquisitive nature too often got the best of him.

“It’s a barrier, kind of,” Bill said. “It’s the final separation between the mindscape and reality.”

“I thought that was the portal’s job,” Dipper said.

“It’s not, and don’t interrupt when I’m explaining demon things, Pine Tree. You’re one of very few humans in history to actually get to learn about any of this.” Bill adjusted his position on the pile, but he remained sitting next to Dipper. He wondered if it was uncomfortable to sit down with the sharp angles. “The portals draw stuff into this place, but it doesn’t actually get to the mindscape. This place is just where I’m able to access it the same way you can access physical objects when you’re in reality.”

“Come again?”

“This is basic stuff, Pine Tree,” Bill said, and air of mocking in his voice. “As a being of pure energy, I can’t influence anything in the physical world. When stuff gets sucked in here, though, I am able to adjust it just enough that I _can_ touch it. Make sense?”

“I guess,” Dipper said, deciding that it would be best not to try to understand the physics of it. “But why not just take it all the way to the mindscape? Why bother with the holding area?”

“The mindscape doesn’t like physical objects as much,” Bill said. “It’s okay for a little while, but eventually stuff starts to lose its physical properties. Like atoms. And, you know, that’s not really helpful for my purposes.”

Dipper didn’t like that he needed reminding, especially from Bill. He looked away again, although it was hard to focus on anything when they were surrounded by void.

“Right,” he said. “That’d be just terrible.”

Bill didn’t say anything, and again Dipper had to wonder what the point of all of this was. He’d already decided that there was nothing immediately available to get him out of the portal, which meant that it was useless for Bill to try to distract him. Yet here they were, having a semi-pleasant conversation while the ground continued to fall down from above them.

He looked down at the water again. It was lapping at the piles a little bit, sort of like waves, and Dipper could see dark things swirling through it.

He turned towards Bill, not even sure what he was going to say. He just wanted this conversation to get a move on already, but he wasn’t sure where they were headed with it. From the look on Bill’s face, the demon didn’t know either, and that was the really weird thing. They were in Bill’s dimension, where he had all the power and was about to win the game. If anything, Dipper would have expected him to be celebrating by dangling Dipper by his ankles while mutant dogs snapped at his face.

_Eugh. I’ve spent way too much time with a dream demon in my head_ , he thought.

“Almost done with that thinking business?” he asked. He wasn’t sure whether he meant it as a joke or a jab, but it fell flat on both fronts.

“No,” Bill said, “and I’m not sure that I ever will be with you sitting there.”

“I can go if you want me to,” Dipper said. He didn’t mind parting company for a little while.

“That’s not what I meant,” Bill said, although whatever he did mean was apparently up for Dipper to figure out, because he fell silent again.

Now, Dipper was starting to get frustrated for real, although it was nothing close to the boiling rage that he had hoped for. It was something much closer to annoyance with a misbehaving pet than anything else.

“Listen, Bill,” he said, and something in his voice must have hit the right note, because the demon finally turned to look at him. “I don’t know what’s going on with you or this place, but I’m tired. I’m tired of myself, and you, and just everything that’s happened. I don’t know what your plan is, and I’m almost to the point that I just don’t care. So, can you please just figure this out already so that I can go home and get back to my sister?”

Bill stared at him, and Dipper wondered if he’d finally managed to offend the demon. He was almost hopeful that that was the case, because it might finally get them somewhere.

Bill’s eye squinted. He got off the mound and floated into the air, twisting around after several feet so that he could face Dipper. the boy stood, not quite tall enough to reach Bill, and the sudden height difference made him regret some of his word choices.

“I don’t have a plan,” Bill said. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with you.”

“Do with me?” Dipper said. “Why not just let me go? You clearly don’t want me, and I don’t want to be here, so let’s kill two bird with one stone.”

“I can’t,” Bill said.

Dipper couldn’t resist. He really did roll his eyes.

“That’s convenient,” he said.

“No, it’s not.” Bill was staring down at him, and despite apparent attempts to keep himself blank, frustration was still coming clear in his words. “You think I wanted you to come here?”

“You didn’t try to keep me out,” Dipper snapped.

Out of nowhere, Bill’s body burst in a deep red flame. Dipper jumped back, avoiding the fire, and ended up tripping over his feet. He fell backwards onto the pile, catching himself just before his head smacked down.

“I didn’t have a _choice_!” Bill roared. He was growing, and Dipper could feel his legs shaking. He wished for the same feeling of brash courage that had gotten him through the maze, but just like the anger, it remained a memory.

“It was either let you in or let you die on impact!” Bill’s voice was rocking the ground beneath them. Dipper saw the tentacle creature stumble. “And I knew that it was stupid, but I figured that a live Pine Tree would be a lot more interesting than a dead one! Who _cares_ if he’s stuck in the mindscape for all eternity! At least I can have fun with you in here!”

“What?” Dipper didn’t make a move to get up, staring at the demon now nearly twice his size. His heart was hammering in his chest.

“Did the welcoming committee not give you the news?” Bill asked, leaning in closer. Dipper could feel the heat pouring off of the demon’s body, and he instinctively backed himself up. Not that there was far for him to go. “You’re stuck here, Pine Tree! Can’t go home! Can’t get back to that dear old sister of yours! It’s just you and me!”

“You’re lying,” Dipper said, although his stomach felt sick with doubt.

“Pine Tree,” Bill purred. “Where would the fun be in that? I tell dying people that they’re about to be cured. I tell mourners that I can bring their dear ones back. Why would I lie about the worst news of you pathetically short life?”

“Maybe to discourage me from actually trying?” Dipper said. His voice was shaking, but he forced himself to stand up, still facing down Bill. “If you convince me to stop trying, then there’s no way that I’ll get home. But I’m not going to let you do that, and I don’t care what you have to say. I’m finding the way out of the place.” With that, he turned and ran over the pile, scaling it easily and leaping off the top.

He landed on the other side with a solid splash, but only made a few steps before Bill appeared right in front of him. A black hand shot out and grabbed Dipper’s right wrist, and the next thing he knew he was being hauled up into the air. He kicked and struggled, but nothing could break Bill’s iron grip. Pain grew in his wrist and shoulder, but he couldn’t get himself away, and a moment later they were too far up for escape to be worth the deadly fall.

“You’re tired, Pine Tree?” Bill asked. The flames flickering over his body were licking at Dipper, the heat forcing him to look away from the demon. “Funny thing. I am, too. I’m tired of you. I’m tired of dealing with a human who thinks he has a place among demons. I’m tired of trying to work out your nonsensical human traditions. Frankly, I’m tired of humans. Maybe when all this is done, I’ll just _happen_ to miss Warner again. That sound good to you, Pine Tree?”

Dipper could feel tears forming from the pain in his arm, but he blinked them away to glare at Bill.

“I won’t let you do that!” he spat. “I don’t care what you say, Bill. I don’t care! I’ll find a way out of here, and I’ll stop you!” And he stared Bill in the eye, even as his legs continued to dangle freely in the air.

Bill stared back. “I could drop you right now,” he said.

“And then you’ll have one dead human,” Dipper said.

Bill’s color faded first, going first to orange and then yellow. He shrunk as well, until her was just a little bit short than the human. Dipper felt the grip around his wrist loosen and then let go. He only fell for a second, though, before plopping onto a plush, straight-backed chair.

“Don’t jump,” Bill said. He sat in a similar chair and allowed a table to appear in between them. “I’ll just catch you, and then we’ll have to use a more uncomfortable method for keeping you up here.

Dipper shifted uncomfortably. Now that he wasn’t facing down an enraged demon, he was much more aware of his distance from the ground.

“I mentioned this earlier, but you decided to start a fight instead of listening to me, so I’ll say it again. We need to talk,” Bill said, crossing his legs and staring across the table. Dipper stared back, wondering if this was a dominance thing. He was about to go for a sarcastic reply, but decided at the last second that he really didn’t want a repeat of the last few minutes.

“Yeah,” he said. “You want to start?”

Bill shrugged.

“You can’t leave,” he said.

Dipper blinked. Compared to Bill’s earlier hesitation, the blunt statement was surprising.

“I don’t understand why,” Dipper said. “All of those other creatures got out. There’s obviously some way to do it.”

“Didn’t you notice anything in particular about all of the creatures you faced?” Bill asked.

Ashamed as he was to admit it, Dipper hadn’t noticed any significant patterns. With everything that had been happening, he had never been able to get himself into an observing mindset. It was unfortunate, considering all of the new information he could have gotten into the journal. He shook his head at Bill.

“They were all bigger than you,” the demon said. “Significantly so, and much stronger, to boot. I would say that it was impressive that you survived, if you hadn’t had demonic intervention helping you along.”

Dipper heard the words, but he wasn’t processing them. He could feel his hands gripping his chair harder, but he forced himself not to panic.

“So they’re stronger than me,” he said. “That’s fine. You just said yourself, I was able to survive despite that. We just need to think through this.”

“Thinking won’t help you, Pine Tree.” Bill was still staring at him, and Dipper could feel a cold sweat break out on his forehead, under his hair. “This isn’t some puzzle with a pre-determined answer. You can’t just logic out of this. The fact is, your human body doesn’t have the strength to survive the journey back.”

“So I’ll hitch a ride with something else,” he said, peering around the back of his chair towards the portal. The tentacle monster was almost through, but it wasn’t too late yet. He just had to grab on, and it would carry him out easy. He glanced back at Bill, and felt his hope shrivel from the look on the triangle’s face.

“I’m not making this up,” Bill said. “Your body wouldn’t have the strength to hold on, and then you would just fall back through again.”

“You can probably do something, though,” Dipper said, leaning forward. His breaths were coming shorter, faster. “This is the mindscape, you pretty much own this place. Can’t you give me the strength to get through or something?”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Bill said, making Dipper’s heart plummet further. “I can’t just make your physical body stronger. At best, I could lend you a portion of my energy, but the effect would be something similar to splitting an atom inside of your body.” He stared at Dipper a moment longer. “Humans can’t survive that.”

“I know that, thanks,” Dipper snapped. It was all he could do not to break down right there. He was fighting tears, and his legs were twitching to get up and run away. There was no ground for him to run on, though, and he didn’t dare another peek down at the ground. His knuckles were going white from how hard he gripped the chair.

“There has to be something,” he whispered.

“Plenty of creatures stronger than you have said the same thing,” Bill said. “It’s almost frustrating, you know. I try to be a good host, and…” He paused, and Dipper felt the demon’s gaze land on a single tear that had broken free. He scrubbed it away, but could still feel Bill’s intense gaze on him. He didn’t want to break down in front of Bill. After all that had happened, he wanted to have his dignity.

“What do you want, then?” Dipper asked, turning back to glare at Bill even as he felt more tears leak out. Never seeing Mabel again, Grunkle Stan, the Shack… “You hoping for another deal?” How would Stan explain to their parents?

He swiped away a tear just as it reached his chin.

“I’m not looking to make a deal,” Bill said. “You don’t have anything interesting to offer me.”

“There’s got to be something you want,” Dipper said. “You get your power from deals and debts. There has to be something you’re after.”

“We’re in the mindscape, Pine Tree,” Bill said, as though Dipper had forgotten somehow. “There’s nothing in here you can offer me that I can’t just as easily get myself. I don’t need any favors from you. I don’t even have need for a body.” He shifted his form to something far more human-looking, minus an eye. “See?”

Dipper drew back from the faux-human, grateful when he shifted back to his normal triangle shape. He slumped a bit. His heartbeat was slowing, and the tears seemed to have stopped for now.

“So what do you want with me?” he asked. “What’s the point of all of this?”

Bill’s cane popped into existence, and he casually twirled it between his fingers.

“I’m still trying to work that out for myself, Pine Tree,” he said. “You’re a bit of an anomaly, you know? Not many humans can manage to surprise me, but boy, I was not expecting to see you falling down that hole. That was a mistake on my part, I guess, really should have known that you’d find your way down here. Now I’ve got to figure out some way to make you useful.”

Dipper glanced down at the ground again. It was getting harder for him to focus on Bill, or anything, really.

“I was thinking I could make you a servant, but that would probably require some brainwashing, at least in the beginning. And where’s the fun in that?”

He looked out at the horizon, to the grey landscape that he hadn’t been able to reach earlier. That must have been the mindscape, the place that didn’t want him because of his physical properties. If he wasn’t allowed to go over there, did that mean that he was stuck in this little area with piles of dirt and monsters? He had a feeling that it would get boring pretty quickly.

“Then I thought to myself, I could just release you into the mindscape. Let you run around and document all of the bizarre things you find. I figured that it would be fun to watch you try to puzzle together the secrets of the universe for the rest of eternity.”

Dipper closed his eyes, trying to block out the droning voice. Behind his eyelids, he could see Mabel staring down as he fell. Actually, he wasn’t sure that he had seen such a thing. His memory was already switching things around, changing his impression of everything that had led to this moment. An eternity in the mindscape. Would he forget reality? Mabel?

Eternity was a long time compared to one human lifetime.

“So, I realized that I couldn’t get you to do anything that you didn’t want to, so I figured we should talk now and figure out exactly what you want to do while you’re here. Anything sounding good to you, Pine Tree?”

Dipper, realizing that Bill was actually looking for input, opened his eyes and looked back to the demon. He was watching Dipper, eye wide with anticipation.

His stomach churned.

“I…” Dipper put a hand to his mouth. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

Bill jumped, and a bowl immediately appeared in front of Dipper. He grabbed it and hung his head over it. For several seconds he coughed and spluttered, but nothing came up except some drool. Annoyed and slightly embarrassed, Dipper uncurled himself and pushed the bowl back towards Bill. It poofed out of existence again, leaving an awkward space between the two, Dipper again unable to meet Bill’s eye.

“Uh. You okay, Pine Tree?”

Dipper glanced at Bill, surprised at the question. He wasn’t sure whether Bill was more worried about his wellbeing or the cleanliness of the mindscape, but the demon’s tone almost inclined towards the former. Dipper wasn’t sure what to do with such information.

“I don’t think so,” he said, impressed with the clarity of his voice, his throat slightly raw from trying to hack up something that didn’t want to come. “You probably wouldn’t understand, with the whole demon thing.”

“Try me,” Bill said. “I’ve been observing humans since your ancient ancestors first crawled onto land. I’ve had plenty of time to learn about your behaviors.”

“Says the guy who was just complaining about how hard it is to memorize everyday human traditions.”

Bill at least had the decency to look embarrassed. “It’s different putting it into practice,” he said, although he didn’t try hard to argue the point.

“Sure,” Dipper said, although it didn’t have any aggression behind it. Maybe it was just the fact that Bill had asked, but he felt inclined to answer the actual question. “To be honest, I think I’m freaking out a little bit. I mean, humans aren’t really built to live for eternity. I’m just… not sure.”

“About?”

“Anything.” Dipper groaned, frustrated with his own inability to turn his emotions into words. “This all happened really fast. I can’t even put a name to everything I’m feeling right now, so it’s kind of impossible for me to think about forever. I mean, people have literally gone crazy trying to understand the concept of infinity, and here I am, being told that this is it, and it’s… kind of a lot to take in. Like, are you positive that I would actually live forever in here?”

“Sort of,” Bill said.

“Sort of? How does someone ‘sort of’ live forever?”

“Well, once you enter the actual mindscape, the composition of your body will slowly start to change until you’re an incorporeal being, like myself,” Bill said. “Not nearly as powerful, of course, but you won’t be constrained by the same physical and biological laws that everyone on Earth has to follow. After humans go extinct, you’ll eventually forget what it means to be human, and you let yourself turn into whatever is most convenient.”

“Okay, yeah, I think I regret asking,” Dipper said. He was trying not to focus on Bill’s words too much, because he wasn’t in the right mindset to consider witnessing the end of humanity. “Revelations like that are the reason that I am really not prepared to make any big decisions right now.”

“Fine,” Bill said. “If not now, then when?”

“I don’t _know_ , Bill,” Dipper said. He knew that he was trying to get a very non-human being to understand this from a human’s perspective, but he barely had the energy to use human words to describe what he was feeling. He just didn’t have it in him to translate for Bill. “I don’t know. It could be never, maybe. I haven’t had a chance to think about how I feel about all of this. Heck, I don’t even know how I feel about you right now.”

“You don’t?” Bill asked.

“Not really,” Dipper said. He wondered if he was saying too much right then, but he was also too tired to care anymore. If he was really stuck here forever… “Don’t get excited or anything. I hate what you did, and I’m probably never going to get over it. Like, if I closed my eyes and think about it for a minute, I’m probably going to find some anger sitting around in there somewhere.

“But at the same time, I guess I can stand to be around you right now, which is way more than I expected this soon after. I kind of started to think that maybe we could be friends, you know? And that’s not the kind of thing that can just die overnight, so I guess I’m still dealing with the aftereffects of that. It kind of helps that some of the stuff that happened was my fault, so that’s distracting me a little bit from the intense rage I should _probably_ be feeling towards you. So yeah.” He gulped. “That’s it.”

Bill leaned onto one arm of his chair. He was watching Dipper’s face, and the boy wasn’t sure that he was comfortable with being observed this way. He wondered again if he had said way too much. He probably had, and Bill would find some way to use it to his advantage. Had Dipper really admitted that he sort of saw Bill as a friend?

_I really said that out loud_ , he thought, fresh terror swooping through him.

“That was quite a confession, Pine Tree,” Bill said, and Dipper was certain that he could hear the mocking on its way. “You shouldn’t reveal your secrets like that unless you get a deal out of it somehow, but I guess you’re still learning. You’ll get the hang of it eventually, and just this once, I’ll throw you a bone.”

Dipper was lost. His expression betrayed as much.

Bill rolled his eye, exaggerated to make up for just having the one.

“A confession of mine for one of yours,” Bill said. “Sound fair?”

Dipper nodded, even though he wasn’t sure that he wanted to hear whatever Bill considered a confession worth trading for.

“This might be something that humans would consider debatable, but I’m of the opinion that you shouldn’t blame yourself for any of it. And the neat thing about that is that my opinions tend to be indistinguishable from facts.”

Dipper opened his mouth, about to refute the point, then snapped it shut. He would have been arguing against his innocence if this were anyone else, but he wasn’t sure how to react when those words were coming form Bill Cipher.

“You couldn’t have known,” Bill said, guessing Dipper’s arguments. “I made sure of that. All powerful dream demon, remember? I would have been putting myself to shame if I ever let on to you what was going on. Plus, you were really a pain in the butt trying to make everything right again. I don’t think anybody else in this town would have gone to the lengths you did to keep everyone safe, and for good reason. The rejecting your sister’s help bit was beyond dumb, sure, but everything else was pretty spot-on. There’s just not much a human can hope to do when they unknowingly pit themselves against a dream demon, kid.”

It was probably the most backwards pep talk Dipper had ever received, but it somehow did manage to leave him feeling a little bit better about himself. Although it was impossible to unearth some of the deeper buried guilt, Bill had managed to scratch off the surface of it, leaving Dipper feeling like he could breathe, at least.

Bill wasn’t done talking. “I almost regret doing all of this while Gravity Falls is still around. If I had waited until the town naturally eroded to dust in ten thousand years, I wouldn’t have had to worry about you popping up to try and defend the place.”

Dipper, watching Bill’s face, such a brief flash of sincerity cross it as the demon stopped talking. Although it was hard to be sure, given how unlikely the idea was in any universe and the fact that Bill could just as easily have been lying again, Dipper almost sort of thought that Bill might have just tried his hand at an apology. Maybe.

“Yeah. Yeah, probably.” He looked away from Bill, afraid of seeing that sincerity again. The expression didn’t look right when placed on a demon’s face. He felt something warm bubbling in his chest, the same feeling of not-quite-but-almost-friendship that he had found every time they defeated a monster together.

He looked at Bill again, then down at the ground. He wasn’t sure that he liked where his emotions were headed, but it was hard to get away from them when he as for the moment effectively immobilized.

“Do you think we can get down now?” he asked. “I kind of need to stretch my human legs.”

“Can’t believe you want to give up the lovely view,” Bill said, but he slowly lowered their table and chairs until they reached the ground again. Dipper hopped onto the nearest pile, glad to feel something solid beneath his feet again, even if it did shift a little.

Bill was floating nearby, and it struck Dipper that they had been far more honest with each other in that last five minutes than they had the entire week they had spent sharing a body. He wondered if this would mark some sort of significant shift in their relationship, and he supposed that it was better to happen now, when they were about to be seeing each other much more often than either one had planned.

That thought sobered him a bit. No matter what his relationship was with Bill, he would never be able to replace Mabel, and this place with all of its stolen parts could never amount to Gravity Falls. It struck him that in just one afternoon, he had managed to lose everything he had ever known and held dear, and a fresh wave of emotion punched him in the gut.

“Hey, uh, Bill?” he said, looking up at the floating demon.

Bill came down a bit so that they were nearly at eye level with one another. He didn’t make a noise, but was clearly waiting for Dipper to talk.

“I think I need some time by myself right now, just to think about stuff,” he said. “Is that cool?”

“You know I can’t read your mind, right?” Bill asked. “You can think all you want while I’m here.”

“Mm, yeah, I kind of figured that,” Dipper said. “I just need some space. It’s a human thing.”

“Oh, got it,” Bill said, clearly not getting it but making an effort to learn. “That’s fine, I’ve been postponing some business just to deal with you. I’ll pop out for a bit, but you just call my name if something happens, got it?” He turned to leave, then turned around once more. “And I mean something actually disastrous. Don’t call me for anything stupid.”

“You got it,” Dipper said, and then the demon disappeared.

Dipper spent several minutes walking around the piles, looking at the stuff that had gotten sucked in. It was hard to get around fast, on account of the water, and the rewards of getting from one pile to the next were rarely worth the effort. Most of what he found was bits of litter. At one point he did come across a wallet. He flipped through it once, but then realized that it was pretty much worthless in the mindscape, so he tossed it back and returned to exploring.

When he became bored of searching, he sat down on top of one of the mounds and tried to think, but it was hard. He mind tried to go in a million directions at once, and he couldn’t seem to focus on any one at a time. Eventually, he gave up trying to come to terms with anything that had happened and instead watched as the tentacle creature pulled its last leg out of the portal and into reality. He hoped that Mabel was safe by now and out of harm’s way. He could handle anything, so long as he knew that she was safe.

Of course, she felt the same way about him. She had wanted to protect him just as much, but he hadn’t let her until it was too late. Because of that, he was now stuck in the mindscape, with no hope of getting out to tell her how important she was to him. He hoped that she wouldn’t come in after him, and a moment later realized that he knew she would, because that was exactly what he would have done for her.

A wave of panic hit him. He couldn’t let Mabel get trapped in here, too. Even if it meant never seeing each other again, he needed to know that Mabel was able to go on and live her life. He had no way to get to her, no way to warn her about the danger, which meant that his only choice was to get rid of the problem. He jumped up to his feet.

He had to close the portal.

“Bill!” he yelled, cupping his hands to his mouth. “Bill, get over here!” Dipper knew that he was closing off his last chance to get back home, but he had to do this. If anyone deserved to live a full life, it was Mabel, and Dipper refused to be the reason that such a thing was stolen from her.

“Bill!” The summer had started off so well. Dipper couldn’t believe that he had come to this point, closing off his last door to reality. He wished that things had been different. He wished that he had listened to Mabel in the beginning, and hadn’t ever made that stupid deal–

Wait.

The idea occurred to him at the same moment Bill snapped into existence.

“Pine Tree!” the demon said. “What’s with the racket?”

“Bill!” Dipper cried, thinking fast. He wasn’t sure if this plan was possible, or a good idea, but he had to try. “Bill, I think I know a way for me to get out of here.”

“We just finished this conversation, Pine Tree,” Bill said. “You can’t leave the mindscape, the amount of energy it would take–”

“Would totally destroy my body, I remember,” Dipper said. His thoughts were racing, barely managing to keep a step ahead of the words tumbling out of his mouth. “But I remembered something. There’s a way for us to generate that power together, without killing me.”

“Pine Tree,” Bill said, but Dipper unintentionally blocked him out. His mind was putting the pieces together as fast as possible, and it was shutting down any possible distractions. Dipper was completely stuck in his own head, oblivious to his surroundings even while he kept speaking.

“You have to remember when we made the deal, and we ended up in that big crater, don’t you? Of course you do, what am I saying. And then later, you told me that that power came from our souls or whatever being squished into the same space. What if we use that power to push me through the portal?” He was grinning from ear to ear, completely unable to contain his excitement. “Of course, we’ll have to take some precautions with the deal, like this time I’m going to be really serious about you only staying in for a little while. But once we’re on the other side, I can push you back out, and bam! Everything will be okay!”

With that, he finally looked up at Bill. He wasn’t sure what the demon’s expression was, but something about it made his enthusiasm waver.

“I’ll admit that I’m surprised that you worked that out,” Bill said. “Didn’t expect you to remember all of that. But it’s no good.”

“Why not?” Dipper asked, desperation filling his voice. He wasn’t ready to give up, and he clung to his prior excitement even as it withered. “Is it not enough power?”

“Oh no, it’s more than enough,” Bill said. “Plenty. You could probably do some damage to the portal itself if you went with that idea.” He glanced up at the portal above their heads, and then back to Dipper. “It’s the part that comes once we’re outside that it starts to get complicated.”

“What… Complicated how?”

Bill sighed. “This is going to take some explaining.” He pulled his cane back into existence and used it to gesture around them.

“This space acts as a bridge between our universes. It turns matter from reality into concepts that I can touch and interact with.” He pointed the cane at himself. “But it also has an effect on me, which is why I’m forced to obey the rules about time when I’m over here. Although I’m not made of matter in any way that human physicists could explain, I do technically have a physical body right now.”

“So we can’t make another deal?” Dipper asked.

“No, we definitely could,” Bill said. “But it wouldn’t be like last time. Rather than me just getting stuck in your body, it would be more like our two bodies fused into one. Granted, you’re still mostly physical and I’m still mostly energy, so it wouldn’t have any disastrous effects on your physiology, but there would still be the problem of getting ourselves unbound.”

Dipper was staring up at Bill, feeling like he had been dashed down on a rock. Bill must have taken his expression for one of confusion, though, because he kept on explaining why Dipper’s last hope was not an option.

“In here, you could use the same spell you did once already and everything would be fine. Our bodies would split apart just fine. In reality, though, it would be a different story. My near-physical body wouldn’t be able to pass back into the mindscape, and I would be stuck in your reality, which honestly sounds pretty boring. And although our interests haven’t been exactly the same as of late, I can assure you that neither one of us wants me to get bored in your universe.”

Now that the tentacle monster was gone, there was nothing left to fill the awkward silence that spanned between them. Dipper was struggling to find a way to deal with the second biggest disappointment of his life, and Bill seemed to be trying to find a way out of the conversation.

“So, that’s that,” he said, flicking his cane in no specific direction. He refused to look down at Dipper’s slouched form. “Good thinking, Pine Tree. You’re keeping that head sharp, which is what I like about you. Just keep doing what you’re doing, and you’ll get comfortable here in no time. Maybe once you get really accustomed to the mindscape, you’ll even be able to visit Shooting Star and tell her about it.”

“How long would that take?” Dipper asked.

“A few months?” Bill said. “I’m not sure. I’ve never actually let a human live in the mindscape for more than a couple hours.”

A few months until he saw Mabel again, until he could assure her that he was alive. That was too long, she deserved to know the truth so that she could start moving on.

“If you’re really worried about her, I can stop by next time she falls asleep,” Bill offered. “Let her know that I’ve got you and don’t plan to let anything happen to you. Unless of course you find trouble yourself, in which care I can’t be held responsible.”

But that wasn’t any good either, because Dipper couldn’t imagine making Mabel hear the news through Bill. This would be a hard subject even for him, and he doubted that Bill, who had complained so much about not understanding humans, would be able to handle the delicate situation. Letting Bill handle the talking seemed almost worse than Mabel not knowing for months.

“I have to tell her,” he said. “And I have to do it today. She needs to know.”

“Good luck with…”

Bill’s pause made Dipper glance up.

“Bill?”

“There is one possibility,” he said, his eye squinted in thought. “But it’s pretty far from ideal.”

“What is it?” Dipper asked, far too eager for his own liking. He knew that his desperation was clouding his reason, but he didn’t care. Anything that could get him back was worth listening to.

“There is the choice that we bind in here and get your body out,” Bill said. “The force would, likely, close the portal behind us, but it would be easy for us to make another. You could speak to Shooting Star, and then we would come back.”

Bill was right, it was not ideal, but it was the best they could do with what they had. Plus, something about it reminded Dipper that this wasn’t the end. He had all the time in the world to figure this out and find a solution. This trip, though brief, would just have to be the start to figuring that out.

“Let’s do it,” he said, glancing back at the portal. It had grown since he first arrived, but otherwise appeared unchanged. The sky beyond it was practically black, and if he squinted he thought he could make out a few stars. He wondered where Mabel was. “You ready to do it right now?”

“Actually, for this to work, we need to wait,” Bill said.

“But Mabel–”

“I _know_ , Pine Tree.” Bill seemed a little more on edge than he had before, and his words came out with a bit of a bite to them. “I know. We’ll do our best to get out there soon, but this all throws a wrench into my own plans.”

It was then that Dipper realized that Bill was actually making a serious sacrifice here. The portal above them was the largest he had ever seen, and also the last. By agreeing to close it, and then opening a significantly smaller one where Mabel and everyone else could see, Bill was pretty much giving up on his plan.

The full force of the realization shook something deep inside Dipper. Despite all that they had said, he had still had a few reservations about Bill, but now they were looking very fragile. For once, he wished that the demon would do something to torment him, just so that he didn’t stray to near to thinking of Bill as an actual friend.

“So what’s that going to mean for us?” Dipper asked, still reeling from the sacrifice but trying to keep himself steady.

“I was expecting some company,” Bill said. “Friends of Warner’s, nobody you would know. My original plan was to get rid of them with all of the energy I was going to collect from the portal, but this changes things. If we don’t want to come back to an ambush, our best bet would be to take them out in the blast.”

“How long until they get here?” Dipper asked.

“Hard to say,” Bill said. “Time doesn’t work well in the space between universes, so it’s impossible for me to track their speed. The best I can tell you is not long. If they’re working for Warner, then they’ll know about the portals, and they’re going to try to get here before I can get much power out of them.”

“So, we just wait until they get here?” Dipper asked.

“ _You_ wait until they get here,” Bill corrected. “I’m going to get what energy I can out of this place. The more I’ve got stored up, the more I can put into the explosion. Uh.” He poofed up a pair of black goggles and handed them to Dipper, who looked at them with mild suspicion. “Put them on. The process can be pretty intense, and I’d rather be able to make use of those two eyes when we get stuck again.”

Dipper slipped them over his eyes. The world went dark instantly, and he uncertainly stuck out his arms in a wary attempt to figure out his surroundings. He felt a small jolt, and then the feeling of air wooshing around him.

“Bill?” he said.

“Just a precaution, Pine Tree,” Bill said from far below Dipper. “It would be a shame if you ended up in the middle of it. Just hang tight up there, and try not to wiggle around too much.” Dipper could almost hear the smirk in his voice. “Hey, maybe try to think of some terms for our deal. I’ve already got a couple in mind, but I’d love to find out what your human brain comes up with.”

Dipper sighed and sat down. He wasn’t sure what he was sitting on, but it seemed to be a smooth cube thing, small enough that his legs had to dangle over the edge. Although it was a little disorientating to have the black goggles on, he felt sort of grateful that he couldn’t tell how far down the ground was.

It was a minute before things started happening, and it sort of caught Dipper by surprise. Out of nowhere, there came a flash of light and a _bang_ , closely followed by a sound eerily similar to a vacuum cleaner. After the first flash faded, a shower of sparks appeared somewhere below Dipper, spreading for only a moment before being sucked back towards one central point.

Bill seemed very focused on the work, not speaking while he went around transforming matter into energy. Dipper was horribly aware when Bill finally caught one of the squirrels, but Bill didn’t extend its suffering or even laugh when it let out a single, pained squeak. Dipper wondered if there was a problem that he thought so highly of the moment.

Bill did check on Dipper a couple of times, although Dipper got the feeling that it was more for amusement than anything else.

“Enjoying the view, Pine Tree?” he asked, he voice still far down below Dipper’s feet.

“It’s great, Bill,” Dipper called out. “Never imagined that I’d get to see fireworks from above.”

The exchanges were few and far between, though, and Dipper was left with plenty of time to sit and think about what he wanted for their deal.

Knowing what he was going to give to Bill wasn’t hard. The demon clearly needed permission to try to possess him, so he would have to offer the use of his body in order for their plan to work out. He became stuck on what he wanted in return, though, because the whole idea of the arrangement was that Bill did this thing for him. He considered going for something easy, like promising to help Bill get rid of whoever was coming after him, but that route almost seemed cheap. Plus, he had a feeling Bill would make fun of his lack of creativity, and he didn’t want that to be how they started off their return to reality.

By the time Bill came back, Dipper had an uncertain idea of what to offer. It wasn’t great, but he had to hope that it would be good enough to keep Bill from laughing at him.

He slipped his goggles off when he heard Bill’s voice nearby.

“They’re nearly here,” the demon said close to Dipper’s ear. Dipper didn’t jump, and Bill floated back in disappointment, unaware how grateful Dipper was to have his personal space restored. “Pretty much knocking on the door at this point. I disabled the traps in the mindscape, so once they’re here, they’re going to come straight for me. You ready?”

“Guess so,” Dipper said, a bit distracted now that he had a chance to look around. He seemed to be sitting on a solid black slab of some sort, raised even higher above the ground than he had originally thought. An uncomfortable tingly feeling ran up the backs of his legs as he tried to judge his distance from the ground. He easily could have been three stories up, or more.

He also noted that the place had be pretty thoroughly swept. Although several scattered piles of junk remained, most of the debris was gone, and the water seemed to have vanished. Dipper was kind of impressed with how fast the whole place had been cleaned out.

“Have your deal ready, Pine Tree?” Bill asked, drawing the human’s attention back towards his golden glow.

Dipper nodded, trying to ignore the knot of nervousness in his stomach.

“Yeah, right, the deal,” he said. “So. I’m going to let you into my body, right?”

“Yep,” Bill said. “Glad you’re sticking to the plan, it would have been a pain to have to explain the whole thing to you again. And in return?”

“In return,” Dipper said, “I want you to promise me that you never lie to me again.”

Bill’s eye crinkled.

“Don’t mean to be rude, kid, but that’s a stupid waste of a deal. I don’t usually do this for clients who never learned about the importance of wording, but I just want to let you know that promises aren’t good for anything. Just say that I can never lie and be done with it.”

Dipper shook his head.

“That’s not the point,” he said. “I want you to make me that promise. I don’t need anything else.” When Bill continued to stare, Dipper shrugged. “It’s one of those human tradition things. The longer you keep that promise, the more you build my trust. Think you can handle it?”

“Like I need your human trust,” Bill muttered, but Dipper was very aware that he did not refused the terms.

Dipper was going to comment on it, but a distant sound interrupted him. It was a bit like a giant piece of paper being torn down the middle, and something about it sent a shiver up his spine.

“Was that them?” he asked, looking to Bill.

“That’s them,” Bill said. The tearing sound was fading, replaced with distant booming and banging. Dipper peered into the grey horizon, but he couldn’t see any changes yet.

“It should take them a while to find their way over here,” Bill said. “That should give us enough time to get ready for the deal, and as soon as they got here–”

A shockwave swept through the area, knocking into Dipper and nearly pushing him off his floating platform. He yelp and grabbed the edges so hard his knuckles went white, but it was hard to get a good grip on the smooth surface.

“Bill?” he said, looking up.

The demon’s eye was darting across the horizon, searching for the source of the blast.

“Probably should have left up a couple defenses,” he muttered just before another shockwave rocketed through the space.

Dipper tried to hold on, but the force of it broke his grip. He was flung off the platform and found himself flying through the air, the black ground rising up to meet him.

“Bill!” he yelled. Black tendrils wrapped around his midsection, knocking the air out of him but also managing to stop his descent. He looked up and saw that Bill had extended his arms to catch him.

“I’ve got you, Pine Tree,” he said, reeling his arms in and bringing Dipper up high as a result.

A third shockwave hit, although it wasn’t so bad now that Bill had a solid grip on Dipper. The boy looked around, and came to realize that three shapes were quickly approaching them. Although they were too far for him to see clearly, he was pretty sure that the one at the front was nothing more than a giant, gaping mouth.

“Why can’t anything ever just go right?” Bill whined, before whipping around and flying straight towards the portal. Although the demon was able to fly forward without an issue, Dipper was buffeted by wind, and he was certain that the drag was slowing them down. He tried to look behind them to gauge how far away the other demons were, but it was too hard to tell with the speed everyone was going at.

“We have to make the deal as soon as we get there, okay?” Bill said. “No hesitations. I can take on one of those things at a time, but three at once is really pushing it. And if they’re working for Warner, then it means they probably have some sort of _strategy_ in mind. Ugh.”

_No hesitation_ , Dipper thought. That was fine. He had no doubt that he would do whatever it took to get to Mabel, even if it was only for a temporary visit.

Something knocked into Bill, making him stumble and nearly stop altogether. Dipper felt the arms around him loosen and then constrict as Bill fought to regain control.

“Air!” Dipper yelped, and the arms relaxed a bit. “Thanks. What hap–”

Dipper’s question was cut off as he turned around and saw the demon. Its blue body was almost perfectly spherical, marred by no feature other than a large mouth right in the center. Thick, blunt teeth shone at Dipper, and a fat pink tongue hung just beyond its lips and dripped with saliva.

“Bill!” Dipper shrieked as the mouth lunged at him. Bill yanked him up just in time, the toe of Dipper’s shoe knocking into one of the front teeth. He found himself pulled even closer to the triangle, although there was still a noticeable chunk of space left between them.

“Cover your ears!” Bill bellowed as he spun around to face the thing.

Dipper clapped his hands over his ears, shutting his eyes for good measure. He hated not knowing where the mouth-thing was and the way he still swung in Bill’s grip, but he kept his ears shut tight.

A scream erupted from Bill, and Dipper’s eyelids glowed red as the world filled with white light. He could feel Bill’s arms tighten around him, but he didn’t dare say anything, focusing on keeping his hands as tight over his ears as possible. Even the muffled scream made his ears ache, and every second it went on was spent with Dipper hoping that it would be over soon.

Finally the noise started to fade and Dipper’s vision returned to darkness. He dropped his hands and blinked his eyes open, searching for the creature. Bill started moving immediately, though, not giving Dipper time to search properly.

“Is it gone?” he asked instead, turning his head towards Bill.

“It’s gone.” Bill had his eye set on the portal, and his voice did not betray any emotion. Dipper hoped that he hadn’t worn himself out already.

“What did you do?” he asked.

“That was a small version of what I had planned for Warner,” Bill said. “It didn’t use up too much of the energy I stored earlier, but it’s that much less that will go into our deal.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Dipper looked back, but he couldn’t see the other two shapes that had been following them earlier. It made him uneasy, not knowing where their enemies were, but he had to hope that they had been scared off when they saw what happened to their ally. The creature seemed to have been completely wiped out, not even ash left to mark where there had once been something.

Dipper wondered what happened to a demon when it died. He wondered how frequently such a thing happened.

Bill continued carrying them forward, until at last they came just underneath the portal. Dipper looked straight up into it, but the scene was just the same as it had been earlier. A black sky stared down at them, decorate with a few wavering stars.

Bill formed a platform just beneath the portal and finally set Dipper down. He was so close that his hair nearly brushed it, and when he reached up a hand to touch it, he was surprised to find that it felt kind of like syrup. He could only push a couple of fingers in before the resistance was too strong, so he stopped playing around and looked towards Bill.

“You ready, Bill?” he asked.

“Always ready,” the demon said. His hand jumped into blue flame, and Dipper eyed it somewhat warily. Even though he knew that this time was different, he still felt uneasy at the thought of making another deal. “You said the terms already. You want to stick with them?”

Dipper raised his hand, then paued. He was about to let Bill back into the physical world, back into his own body, just so that he could see his sister again. He was possibly putting the whole world at risk, and his only proof that things would turn out alright was because the demon had said he was sorry. He was being selfish, and naïve, and stupid, and oh god, this had to be a bad idea. What had he been thinking?

“Pine Tree?” Bill’s flaming hand was still held out, palm open and weirdly inviting.

“Pine Tree!”

Bill darted forward, shoving Dipper to the side. For a moment, Dipper thought that he was trying to knock him off, and he rolled to the side to avoid the edge of the platform. He turned back just in time to see strings lash around the demon’s arms and legs and start to pull him down.

The second creature had appeared, its body a mess of quivering, shifting threads. They looped and tied themselves around the triangle, pulling him back towards the main mass. Bill was fighting, trying to pull himself away, but the way the creature held him prevented him from aiming back at it. He was being dragged down further and further, his one flaming hand still waving madly at Dipper.

“Bill!” Dipper yelled, throwing himself towards the demon. He didn’t think. Didn’t have a plan. He just went for it.

He ran to the edge, crouched onto one foot, and jumped into the still space between himself and the creature. He hung in the air for a moment, feeling the wind ripple through his vest.

Just before he started to fall, he grabbed Bill’s hand with both of his own.

The world went white. Silence erupted around them, and in less than a second Dipper found himself alone with Bill, the string creature wiped from existence. He tried to look into the demon’s eye, but the light proved too bright for him, and he was forced to shut his own.

A strange feeling emerged, starting where his hands touched Bill’s and spreading, although not in the direction he expected it to. The spread out, towards Bill’s arms, and the farther it went, the more Dipper realized that he was feeling what it was like to live in Bill’s body. He could feel the press of his palms, the warmth emanating out of his body and into Bill’s. Bill’s surface didn’t feel solid, like skin. It was almost like he was wearing a dream, and he was aware that he could change it to whatever he wanted at will.

Just to see what would happen, he tried raising Bill’s arm that wasn’t still trapped between Dipper’s two.

He felt the demon jump at the sudden movement, was surprised at how wide Bill’s eye could open.

_Woah there, Pine Tree. Boundaries._

Dipper opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, a strange force pulled him towards Bill. He still had his eyes closed and he couldn’t see as their two bodies met and somehow merged seamlessly, so that it was impossible to say whether Dipper was feeling his own hand or Bill’s, his lungs or Bill’s void. He heard a crackling somewhere far, far away, and then the light started to dim.

He realized that he was lying on the ground, staring up at the night sky. The stars were twinkling directly above him, and a full moon bathed the sky in silvery light.

He sat up and looked around. He had somehow ended up back in the junkyard, on the edge of the hole he had been dragged into just a couple hours before. He crawled towards the edge cautiously and peered down.

The moon illuminated a dirt floor. It was surrounded by an enormous cavern and lots of debris, but it otherwise showed no signs of having had a giant portal sitting on it a minute ago.

He sat back and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Great. Now that we’ve managed to destroy everything that I’ve worked for, what’s next?” his voice asked.

Dipper didn’t get a chance to answer, as a squeal from behind interrupted anything that he had had planned.

“Dipper!” A moment later, Mabel bowled into him, flopping them over dangerously close to the edge of the hole. The twins laughed as they fell over each other, all hugs and smiles for a minute before Dipper finally pulled them to a stop while Mabel still had her arms wrapped around him. She was sniffling, but Dipper couldn’t tell whether it was from crying or laughing or both.

“Dipper,” she repeated, squeezing him closer. “You’re _okay_. You’re okay.”

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s going to be okay.”

“I almost thought… I was worried that maybe…”

“Everything’s going to be okay,” Dipper said, rubbing small circles in her back.

“I didn’t need to have worried so much,” Mabel sighed. “You’re my brother. I should have known that you would figure it out.”

Dipper held still for a moment, trying to relish the feeling of closeness a little bit longer.

_Can we hurry this up? Not a fan of the human touching stuff._

Dipper didn’t have a clue why he could hear Bill’s voice in his head, but he decided that it would be best to listen to it now and question it later.

“It wasn’t just me,” he said. “I couldn’t have done it by myself. I… I kind of need a little bit of help.”

Mabel fell quiet, and then slowly pulled herself back. Dipper expected her to be furious, but as soon as her face came into view, her expression broke into a huge grin and a snort of laughter burst out against her will.

“Oh my gosh, bro-bro,” she said, trying to cover up the giggle attack that bubbled up every time she looked at him. “Oh my gosh. Dipper, you’re _blond_.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alt chapter title that I didn't use because I couldn't think of any good justification for a Hobbit reference: There And Back Again
> 
> This is it, guys! Second to last chapter, which means that this time next week I'll be posting the last chapter of my longest work ever. I am so at a loss for what to say, I am so thrilled and sad and I just have so many emotions about all this.
> 
> I was really worried that this chapter would be too short, and then it turned out to be the longest one, just 300 more words than Chapter 3. Don't know how that happened, but it certainly did.


	12. Who Knows What's Under the Skin

Dipper’s first hour back in reality passed by in a blur. First there were some awkward re-introductions between Bill and Mabel, the latter of who couldn’t stop giggling over Dipper’s hair. Then Candy and Grenda had barged in, demanding to know what was going on, and Dipper and Bill were forced to tell them the truth, starting all the way back to the first portal and going to the deal. He left out some details on purpose, but he was sure to tell them about how Warner’s goons had gone after them and that their escape had closed the portal behind them permanently.

They had just gotten out of the junkyard when Stan pulled up with Wendy and Soos. Soos immediately pulled them into a hug, eliciting a surprised scream from Bill, and they had to explain themselves _again_ to avoid hurting Soos’ feelings. On top of the repetition, Dipper had forgotten how hard it could be to talk with Bill around, and it turned out to be even worse when they were talking about demon stuff. Bill would say something that went over everyone’s heads, and Dipper would try to simplify it for their understanding. Then Bill would insist that he had missed the point, and go into an even longer, more confusing explanation that left even Dipper scratching his head. Or rather, their head.

This was going to take some getting used to. Again.

Overall, the entire thing was exhausting, and he was so grateful when Bill’s explanations proved so complicated that nobody was able to come up with any more questions. Stan, noticing a lull in the conversation, announced that he was taking the twins home. After dropping off everyone else at their respective dwellings, they were finally on their way back to the Mystery Shack.

“Shooting Star, I’ve got a question,” Bill said. He kept playing with the material of Dipper’s shirt, apparently not yet used to wearing clothes again.

“Go for it,” Mabel said, smiling at them. She had taken the news, well, better than Dipper had expected. Although she seemed upset that they were back to where they started, she hadn’t been nearly as angry at Dipper as he had expected, or even Bill, for that matter. She just kept saying how happy she was to have her brother back.

Dipper still hadn’t told her that the visit was only temporary.

“Do you trust me?” Bill asked, oblivious to the fresh wave of guilt Dipper was experiencing.

“Woah there, Bill, you can’t just ask someone something like that,” Mabel said. She didn’t look offended by the question, though, mostly amused, and again Dipper was forced to wonder how she was taking this whole thing so well. “Even if I were to answer you, what I said wouldn’t really mean anything. Trust is all about actions. I could say that I trust you right now, but it doesn’t mean a whole lot if the time comes for me to trust you and I don’t feel comfortable with it.”

Bill sighed and tried to sink down into the seat, although Dipper held their legs in place and refused to let him get very far.

“I have a feeling that figuring out this human stuff isn’t even going to be worth the effort,” Bill said.

“No way, humans are awesome!” Mabel said, tilting her head and grinning. “You’re probably getting a pretty cynical worldview from hanging out with my brother so much. If you were to ever try someone a bit more optimistic, I’m sure you’d find something in humans to love!”

“I’m not cynical,” Dipper said, his slight frown only getting a little giggle from Mabel. He glanced back out the window, towards the starry sky with a bright moon. “And anyway, no one else is getting stuck with Bill. Just trust me when I say that it takes a special kind of patience to put up with a dream demon.”

“Did I do something to deserve this disrespect? I think I’m being unfairly disrespected, Shooting Star,” Bill said, forcing their gaze back to Mabel. He pulled their face into an expression that Dipper guessed was supposed to be imploring, although it was much harder to tell for sure based on muscle movements alone.

“I mean, you did kind of almost drag the entire town into you portal things,” Mabel said. She wasn’t looking them in the eye, Dipper noticed, her gaze focused on a lock of hair she kept twirling around her finger. “So I guess maybe you deserved it a little bit.”

Bill didn’t refute the point, and they were left with an awkward silence that Dipper was pretty sure the others expected him to fill. It freaked him out a little bit, since he was, he had to admit, not that much better at human stuff than Bill was. The only difference between them, really, was that Dipper had spent the last 13 years _pretending_ to know what was going on, which had worked surprisingly well for him in years past.

This time, though, he doubted that he could skate through on luck alone.

“You guys want to get pancakes?” he asked, regretting the words as fast as they came out of his mouth but unable to think of anything better.

Mabel gasped.

“My brother is a genius!” she cheered. “Midnight pancakes, how did I never think of this sooner?” She leaned forward into the front seat. “Grunkle Stan, turn this car around! We have to get back to Greasy’s right away.”

“No,” Stan said.

“But–”

“We’re already almost home. And anyway, I’m exhausted. If you’ve already forgotten, it’s kind of been a long day.”

“But Grunkle Staaan,” Mabel whined, drawing out his name for several seconds.

“Glassesss,” Bill mimicked, although Dipper wasn’t sure that he even knew what was going on.

“Listen, I can _make_ pancakes, if you really want them that bad. In the morning.”

“But Grunkle Stan, we’re hungry now!” Mabel said, throwing herself back to the seat and wrapping an arm around Dipper’s shoulders. He glanced over at her and felt Bill grin at the same time. “Right, Dipper?”

“I haven’t had a physical body to eat with since before Pine Tree kicked me out,” Bill said. “So it’s nearly been two days, I think? Far too long.”

“Bill, we share a stomach,” Dipper said. “We feel fi–” The desperate pleading in Mabel’s eyes made him pause, though, and he sighed in resignation. “Yes, Grunkle Stan, I’m starving.”

“You heard him!” Mabel cheered. “The hero of Gravity Falls demands pancakes! Let it be so!”

Dipper noticed Stan glance back at them in the rearview mirror. He tried to offer an apologetic smile, but Bill’s grin was still stretched across their face. Stan refocused on the road.

“Fine,” he said. “But then I want you straight to bed. And brush your teeth.”

“In that order?” Bill asked.

“Whatever it takes to get the job done,” Stan said, pulling the car up in front of the Shack and turning off the ignition.

Mabel bounced out first, followed shortly by Dipper, who took control of the legs before Bill had a chance. He wasn’t sure that he entirely trusted the demon with walking just yet. In rebuttal, or maybe out of boredom, Bill took their arms and played with the zipper on Dipper’s vest as he walked towards the front door.

Mabel was waiting for them when they arrived. She stared at Dipper for a moment before launching herself at him, wrapping him in a hug once more. Bill seemed caught off guard for a moment, letting their arms hang awkwardly at their sides. Once he had a moment to understand what was going on, though, he raised his hand and gently patted Mabel’s arm until she let go.

Dipper wondered if this was progress.

“All good?” he asked, offering a small smile.

“Yeah, I’m good,” she said. “I’m just so happy that you’re really here.”

Dipper’s smile grew wider, and he was surprised at how genuine it felt.

“Me, too,” he said as Stan arrived and unlocked the door for them. Mabel dashed inside, followed by their Grunkle, leaving Dipper and Bill to take the rear.

_You’re going to have to tell her the truth soon._

Dipper jumped at the sound of Bill’s voice in his head. For a moment, he thought that maybe he had thought it himself, but from the devilish grin his mouth was fighting, he doubted that was the case. He closed the door behind him and sped to the bathroom, avoiding looking at Stan and Mabel in case his face betrayed anything.

He closed the door behind him before turning on the lights. He glanced into the mirror and jumped backwards with a yelp.

Dipper shut his eyes. He was praying that his eyes were confused, but he knew that he couldn’t have been that lucky.

_Come on, Pine Tree. I want to see!_

Dipper cracked his eyes open and slowly peaked up at the mirror. He groaned. Mabel had been wrong.

His hair wasn’t blond.

It was bright, canary yellow.

“Oh my god,” he moaned, pulling off his hat to get a better look at it. He tussled his hair a couple times, just to be certain. Yes, it was really his. “How am I going to explain this to my parents?”

“Parents?” Bill asked.

“The two adult humans who got together and made me,” Dipper said. He put the cap back on. With just the bangs showing, it was a little bit easier to pretend that it was a normal human color. “And Mabel.”

“I know what parents _are_ , Pine Tree,” Bill said. “It’s this idea that you’re sticking around long enough to have to explain anything to them.”

“Oh. Right.” Immediately, Dipper’s bright yellow hair stopped seeming like such an issue. He hadn’t thought about all of the people he wouldn’t get a chance to say goodbye to. His parents, of course, and his several friends back home. Even in Gravity Falls, there were too many people that he wanted to see in the limited time that he had. “How soon do we have to go back?”

Bill didn’t answer, though, because they jumped when they heard a pounding on the door.

“Dipper?” Mabel said. It sounded like her face was pressed against the door, and Dipper was certain that he could hear the laughter in her voice. “I swear, bro-bro, it’s not a bad look for you. We can make it work.”

“I dunno, Mabel,” Dipper called back, trying to match her cheer. “Yellow’s not exactly in my top five colors.”

_Hey._

Again, the sensation made Dipper jump, and he suddenly remembered why he had come into the bathroom in the first place.

“But, hey, can we get a little privacy, please?” he asked. “This is a bathroom, after all.”

“Oh. Whoopsies!” Mabel pulled herself away from the door. Dipper could hear her footsteps as she walked away. “Well, finish quick and get out to the kitchen, or else I’m taking all of the chocolate chips!”

“You wouldn’t,” Dipper said. A giggle signaled that yes, Mabel certainly would.

Dipper listened for a moment more to make sure that she had really left. Then, he turned back to the mirror and stared his reflection in the eye.

“Okay, how are you doing that?” he asked.

“You’ll have to be more specific,” Bill said, with a smile that said he knew exactly what Dipper was talking about.

“How am I hearing you in my head?” Dipper asked. “We couldn’t do that before, unless we could and you never decided to use it. But that wouldn’t have made any sense, because I know that you would have loved to torture me with it, and you had no idea that we were ever going to fuse again. So, I guess this has to be a new development?”

“Or I’ve been planning this whole thing all along,” Bill said, although he backpedaled quickly when he saw the real fear on Dipper’s face. “I’m joking, Pine Tree. I’m joking. Really, this is a brand new thing for both of us.”

“How do I know that you’re telling the truth?” Dipper asked. He didn’t like being suspicious, but as he had already seen, being tricked was even worse.

“I made a promise,” Bill said. He pulled their eyes away from the mirror, focusing instead on the toilet paper. Dipper couldn’t see anything very interesting about it. “And besides, you were spot-on. If we’d had this earlier, I would have taken advantage of it. And I would never _plan_ to spend more time in a body than strictly necessary.”

“You spent a whole evening running around my sister’s puppet show,” Dipper pointed out.

“It seemed really important at the time,” Bill said. While he was distracted, Dipper pulled their eyes back to the mirror. He was staring at himself, of course, but it felt more natural to talk with a human face in front of him. The yellow hair made it possible for him to pretend, at least.

“You didn’t answer my question, though,” he said. “How are you doing it? I want to do it.”

“I’m a master of the mind,” Bill said. “I don’t need to think about the _how_ of the things I do. I just do them.”

“You’re really the worst possible thing to get stuck in a body with, you know that?”

_You’ll learn to appreciate my company one day, Pine Tree._

Dipper smirked. There was an important difference between liking spending a lot of time with someone and considering them a weird sort-of friend. Although Dipper couldn’t say exactly what that difference was, he knew that Bill illustrated it perfectly.

_As if._

Dipper’s eyes went wide, and he wasn’t sure whose surprise the expression came from.

“Fast learner, Pine Tree,” Bill said. “I might even call you a natural, if you didn’t have the powers of a dream demon helping you along.”

_A very stubborn dream demon who can never make himself useful for anything. Can we have whole conversations like this?_

_Probably. Just watch your expression. You get this glazed look when you start to think too hard, and it gets to the point where you look like you’re just trying to remember how to breathe._

Dipper rolled his eyes. “Thanks. I’ll keep that it mind.”

Before they left, Dipper took one last close look at himself. His right eye had returned to Bill’s yellow, but there was something more natural about the color this time. It was definitely a far cry from his regular color, or anything that he had seen on another human. He might have called it golden, almost. The pupil was also circular instead of slit, and he couldn’t help but be happy about the improvement. Looking at himself in the mirror now felt less like he was facing a stranger. Of course, the image was beyond bizarre, but it was a definite improvement.

They opened the door and walked back into the kitchen, greeted by the sight of Stan standing over the stove while Mabel watched him from the table. She smiled when they entered and patted the chair beside her. A plate and silverware had already been set up for them.

Mabel was talking before Dipper had even sat down.

“So, I was thinking,” she said, “and don’t anybody try to fight me about this, because I know that you guys were all thinking the same thing. It’s been a really long week, and we’re all tired. What if Grunkle Stan closes up the Shack tomorrow and takes us on a road trip?”

_You going to tell her soon?_

“Mm, uh , I don’t know,” Dipper said. Mabel’s eyes jumped to him. He expected disappointment, but instead was met with her characteristic enthusiasm, which was somehow even worse.

“Come _on_ , Dipper,” she said, leaning towards him. “You and me, and Bill, and Grunkle Stan. the four of us on the open road, with no end in sight and nobody around to hold us back! No portals, no Shack, just a pile of car snacks to keep us company.”

“Shooting Star, I’m flattered that you would include me in your plans,” Bill said. “But I’m afraid Pine Tree and I will both have to decline.”

_Bill!_

_What? You’re going to have to tell her eventually._

“Not that, I mean, it’s _possible_ ,” Dipper said, rushing over his words to prevent any hurt from reaching Mabel’s face. He wasn’t ready. Why couldn’t they just have a nice midnight breakfast without something supernatural barging in to ruin it? “It would, just, you know, require some planning? Right, Grunkle Stan?”

“It’s not something we can do by tomorrow morning, especially since you’re keeping me up for pancakes,” he said. Dipper felt his hopes rise. It might still be possible to get through this without breaking Mabel’s heart just yet. “By the end of the week, though, I don’t see why not. You kids and immortal nightmare creature have probably earned a break. Maybe we could go camping.”

“Camping!” Mabel cheered. “We’d probably see a bunch of Gravity Falls people, too, and we could tell them all about your daring escape from a demon portal, Dipper!”

“Daring escape, huh?” Bill said. “Glad to know that Pine Tree was able to make it out on his own, I guess.”

“Hey, I saved your life,” Dipper said.

“Wait, who saved whose life?” Mabel asked, reminding Dipper a moment too late that the people around him couldn’t tell the difference between speakers so easily.

“I did,” he said. “I mean, I, Dipper, saved Bill’s life.”

“Shooting Star, it’s not nearly as heroic as he makes it sound,” Bill said.

_I’m not trying to make it sound heroic._

_I know. It was even less than that._

Dipper fumed.

“There was this demonic string thing, and it was trying to swallow Bill alive!” he cried, forcing his voice past any argument Bill could have made. “I practically jumped into its mouth to get him out, and that’s when we made the deal that got us out of the mindscape. So, yeah, it kind of was a little bit heroic, _Bill_.”

Mabel squeaked. At some point, her hands had come up to cup her cheeks, and she was staring at Dipper with wide eyes.

“Oh my gosh, bro-bro!” she said. “You actually seemed cool for a second!”

“R- really?” Dipper said.

“Not exactly,” Stan said as he walked over with a plate piled high with pancakes. He set it down in the middle of the table, and both twins immediately made a grab for them. “But you know, it was probably the closest you’ve ever come. Hey, woah, watch it!”

Bill, in his excitement and confusion, had knocked over the maple syrup while trying to navigate Dipper’s other hand . Thick, sticky liquid spilled onto the table, blossoming out almost immediately.

“Oops,” Bill said, fumbling to pick up the bottle with his one hand. Dipper finished depositing a pancake onto his plate and went to assist. With both hands working, they managed to get the bottle upright again, albeit with syrup all over their hands.

“What was all that?” Mabel asked, already chewing her first bite of pancake. As soon as Dipper and Bill released the syrup, she darted forward to grab it and start spilling it onto her own pancakes.

“Nothing, just some miscommunication,” Dipper said. “We just have to get used to sharing a body again, I guess.”

_We’re not doing this long enough to have to get used to it._

Dipper sighed before he stood from the table and walked them over to the sink to wash off the maple syrup. Bill accidentally scratched them from scrubbing too hard, and Dipper again had to wonder when his life had gotten so completely out of his control.

 

* * *

 

For the first time in two years, Stan actually enforced teeth brushing. Mabel and Bill groaned about it, and Dipper couldn’t say that he tried to stop them, but it did happen in the end. After that, it was in pajamas and straight to bed, no buts. He was there to turn off the light, and then returned five minutes later to ensure that it stayed off.

Unfortunately, none of the inhabitants of little room were quite ready to fall asleep yet. Mabel in particular was keen to stay up longer, and Bill was quick to latch onto and magnify her excitement. Dipper was pulled along for the ride, not that he minded spending a little more time with his sister.

“And now it’s in the lake somewhere, probably eating all of the fish,” Mabel said, completing her story of what she had been up to while Dipper had been trapped in the mindscape. Bill tried to applaud her, but Dipper, aware of the noise, rolled on top of his hands and kept them still.

“Geez, Mabes,” he said, “I don’t think I can hold onto the hero of Gravity Falls title, anymore. You pretty much saved everyone’s lives, which is way better than all of the stuff I did.”

“Oh, I had help,” Mabel said, although Dipper could tell that she was pleased. “Wendy and Candy and Grenda all did a ton, also. And even though things didn’t go quite right, you did manage to fix the portal problem in the end. Right, Bill?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell him, but Pine Tree’s not keen on people telling him that he’s not terrible, I guess,” Bill said.

“Aw, really?” Mabel said. “Come on, Dipper. Can’t you see that nobody blames you for what happened?”

“I blame you for the ruining my plans part,” Bill said. “But besides that, yeah, it was pretty much all on me.”

“See?” Mabel said. It was dark enough in their room that Dipper could only see her outline, but he still knew that she was smiling at him, all hope and no hurt. Dipper wished that it could be that easy, if only for her sake. He wished.

“It’s really nice of you to say that,” he said. “But I can’t just stop blaming myself. When I think about all of the times people could have been hurt or killed because of my mistakes, it’s just…” He gulped, and Bill made no move to take their voice. “Anything could have happened, and I can’t just forget that. I can’t just let it go.”

He heard Mabel’s sigh from across the room. He knew that she was disappointed, but he couldn’t just lie about his feelings and claim that everything was okay. They both deserved better than that.

“If you ever want to talk about it, you know I’m here,” she said.

_And you know that we’re going to be hanging out for a while._

“Yeah,” Dipper said. “Thanks.” He glanced out their window. The sky was still dark, but he knew that it would be growing bright again in a few hours. A new day would begin, and, what? They couldn’t just pretend that it was a normal day and do their regular thing. The longer he kept up the lie, the more it would sting when he finally admitted to it. Really, he should have admitted it when he first came out of the portal, but he didn’t. And now here he was, in the dark of his bedroom, and his sister was promising that she would always be there for him.

How could he just accept that knowing that the reverse wouldn’t be true?

“Mabel,” he said. “There were some complications when we were getting out of the portal.”

“Dipper?”

“I should have told you earlier, but everything seemed so nice and normal for once that I just didn’t want to. I just wanted to spend some time with you first.”

“What didn’t you tell me?” Mabel sat up in bed. “What’s going on?” Dipper could hear the worry in her voice, try as she might to mask it with her usual cheer. It wasn’t fair. She shouldn’t have had to do that for him.

“Give him a second, Shooting Star. He’s trying.”

“Bill?” Mabel said.

“There was this whole thing,” Dipper said. He was still staring down at him pillow, unable to even look at the silhouette of his sister. “About Bill’s body and my body. Bill’s almost physical in the mindscape. It’s why my hair is blond now, and it means that we can’t separate in reality.”

“So you’re going to stay together?”

“No,” Dipper said. He breathed in, and out. “We have to go back to the mindscape.”

“Forever,” Bill added.

“No!” Dipper cried, too late to stop Mabel’s gasp. He rolled them out of bed and ran to Mabel’s side of the room just as she flipped over to face the wall. “Possibly not forever. We’ll be able to visit reality sometimes, if you just open a portal for us. And I’m going to spend all of my time trying to find a way to get my body out permanently. Sound good?”

“But it’s going to be a long time, right?” Mabel said. “You’re going to be in the mindscape with Bill, and I’ll be here on Earth, without a brother.”

“Not without a brother,” Dipper said. “I’ll still keep an eye on you, and we’ll be able to see each other sometimes.” Silence came from the little lump on the bed. “Mabel?”

“I think I just want to go to sleep now,” she said. “Is that okay?”

“Yeah,” Dipper said, stepping back towards his own bed. “That’s fine.”

Bill lifted the covers and Dipper slid them in, suddenly exhausted but with no desire to sleep. Just as he got comfortable, he heard Mabel sit up.

“When are you leaving?” she asked.

“I’m not sure,” Dipper said.

“Some time tomorrow,” Bill answered.

“Oh. Okay,” Mabel said.

Neither of them spoke after that. Dipper and Bill shifted around in the bed, trying to find a comfortable position with the two of them. Dipper knew that he had made a mistake somewhere, but he wasn’t sure where it was, or if he could fix it.

 

* * *

 

Dipper wasn’t sure whether or not he was dreaming.

He walked down a long, long hall. He knew that he was looking for something, but he couldn’t remember what it was.

Bill did not appear, but Dipper knew that he was watching.

 

* * *

 

They woke up just past noon. The sun, high in the sky, shone through the window and lit the room with a bright glow. Mabel’s bed was already vacant.

“We slept in,” he said.

“Fine by me,” Bill said. “I don’t have any emotional connection to this universe. I wouldn’t mind spending the rest of your day here.”

“Nope, not happening,” Dipper said, pushing them off of the bed. Bill caught them with their hands and pushed them upright. Dipper swayed on their legs for a moment before he found his balance and was able to stand with stability.

“Shooting Star was pretty upset last night,” Bill said as they walked to the closet. He opened the door and grabbed the first shirt within reach, then dropped it on the floor and started pulling off their pajamas.

“I know,” Dipper said. “It sucks. But this might just be something that hurts for a while. There’s nothing I can really do to make it better.”

“Don’t humans usually have magical words to fix situations like this?” Bill asked. He had successfully removed the shirt, and was now trying to remember how to put on the new one. He threw it over their head.

“Rarely,” Dipper said, “and it’s pretty hard to figure out exactly what they are. Right now, I don’t think there’s anything I could say, besides something like, ‘Good news! I’m not abandoning you for the mindscape!’”

“Hm.” Bill finally found the arm holes and pushed their hands through. He pulled the hem of the shirt down to their hips, smoothing down the front as he went. As a last thought, he directed their gaze down to the collar to check if he’d gotten it on the right way around. Dipper felt him grin.

“Humans are truly the most bizarre of creatures, but I think I’m starting to get the hang of them,” he said.

Dipper rolled his eyes, but the grin stayed right in place.

They finished getting dressed and then walked downstairs. Dipper wasn’t hungry, but his thoughts were on breakfast, or maybe lunch. He was still trying to decide whether he wanted a bowl of cereal or a sandwich when he walked into the kitchen.

Mabel was at the table, leaning over an immense book filled with tiny little font. She had a notebook open beside her with a few lines written down and was pressing the tip of the pencil to the page. She wasn’t writing at the moment, though, and from the way she jumped when he entered, he doubted that she had been reading either.

“Morning,” Dipper said.

“Afternoon,” Mabel replied, flicking up her pencil hand in a small wave. For a moment, Dipper thought that maybe she was feeling better. Then, all at once, she remembered that she was upset and returned her gaze to the book.

Dipper went to the cabinet and pulled down a box of sugary cereal. If this really was his last day on Earth for a while, he deserved that much. While he set about retrieving everything else he would need for the meal, Bill started speaking again.

_I am clearly not the resident expert on humans. But, don’t you think it would be good to talk a little bit? If you two are really so broken up about being split?_

Dipper sighed.

“Where’s Grunkle Stan?” he asked as he poured cereal and milk into a little white bowl.

“He said he had to to errands,” Mabel said. “I think he’s taking advantage of the town while it’s deserted.”

“Ah,” Dipper said. He walked over to the table with his bowl and spoon and sat down across from her. “Did you tell him about… what I said last night?”

Mabel glanced up.

_Smooth, Pine Tree._

“No,” she said. She looked like she wanted to say more, but stopped herself and returned to reading.

Dipper took a spoonful of cereal. The sugar made him want to gag, but Bill seemed to enjoy it. The demon eagerly swallowed the first spoonful and then opened their mouth for more, which meant that their voice was off-limits to Dipper.

_Hey, is it cool is I talk to Mabel for a second?_

_Cereal first, then awkward sibling angst._

Dipper wanted to grumble about it, but instead just kept shoveling in cereal until the bowl was empty. Bill didn’t seem to mind the violent cereal eating, and even got them to drink the extra milk when they were done. Dipper was pretty sure that their tongue had gone numb by the end, but he immediately felt when Bill released control of it.

“What are you reading?” he asked. It was the first thing that came to mind.

Mabel glanced up again, shrugged, and then looked down at the book. “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s something about the Constitution, maybe? Or it might be the Civil War. I honestly have no idea.”

Dipper stared at his twin.

“What’s with the pause, Pine Tree?” Bill asked. “Do you have some weird taboo about discussing the history of your country?”

“No, nothing like that,” Dipper said. “I mean, in some places in the country, sure, but that’s not… We were supposed to do this assignment for our summer homework.”

“And?”

“Mabel _never_ does her homework before the last day of summer,” Dipper said. Mabel’s already-rosy cheeks were going even redder, and she seemed to want to sink down into her notebook. “Are you okay?”

“No,” Mabel said, her blush growing hotter.

“Is it because of the thing?”

Mabel didn’t respond, which was an answer in itself.

“Do you want to talk about it, Shooting Star?” Bill asked.

Mabel looked at them again. She had raised up the pencil to twirl it through her hair, apparently without realizing.

“i…” she started, then stopped and shook her head. “I think…” Again, she stopped.

She tried several more times before she gave up with a cry of frustration.

“I don’t know!” she shouted. The small kitchen amplified her voice, making Dipper flinch. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to say or do or feel. I don’t know! This is all happening really fast, and I, I…”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Dipper said, waving their hands as though waving away the problem. “We don’t have to talk about it. We could just talk about something else for a while.”

“But I can’t think about anything else!” Mabel said. She picked up the book and spun it around to face Dipper, jabbing her finger on it. “I’ve been trying to read this all day, and I’m still stuck on the first page! I literally can’t focus on anything.”

“Fine, fine, that’s okay then,” Dipper said. “We don’t have to talk. We could just go do something.”

“Like what?” Mabel asked. Her tone was calmer now, but somewhat wary.

“I want to go to the lake,” Bill said, startling both of the twins. Dipper had almost forgotten that he was there, and Mabel hadn’t expected such enthusiasm to come out of her brother just like that.

“The lake? Why?” Dipper asked. “We were there a week ago, and it’s not like there’a new portal to mess with.”

“I want to see how Shooting Star’s friend is doing,” Bill said.

“Oh yeah,” Mabel said, suddenly interested. Dipper couldn’t help but feel a little jealous over how quickly Bill had shifted her mood. “I probably should check and see how he’s doing in his new home.”

“Good answer!” Bill said. “You in, Pine Tree?”

“I mean, I don’t have a choice,” Dipper said. “So yes.”

“Great,” Mabel said, instantly abandoning the book and getting up from the table. “I’ll go grab the bikes!”

_Bikes? Wait, no, Mabel, Bill doesn’t know how to ride!_

“That’s a shame, huh?” Bill said as Mabel took off through the door. He smirked. “Guess you’ll have to teach me!”

 

It took a while for them to reach an agreement, because Dipper had trouble thinking of any body part Bill could control without causing disaster. The legs were out, of course, at well as the hands and arms. He offered to let bill control their torso, but the demon claimed that it would be too boring, until Mabel pointed out that it would still be possible for him to throw them off. Dipper then revoked the offer.

Eventually, they agreed that Bill would get uninterrupted use of the mouth for the whole ride. He tried to push for the whole head, but Dipper wasn’t about to give up control of his vision.

The ride was nice. Mabel and Bill talked the whole time, leaving Dipper feeling happy but also a little bit jealous. He wanted to be that good at making his sister happy, but the demon had an undeniable charm that Dipper just couldn’t match, especially given the tension he was still feeling between them.

Instead, he focused on the feeling of the air rushing past him and the sights of the forest and town as they flashed past. Most of the residents were still gone, but a few were already out and trying to repair the damage from the night before. They waved at Dipper and Mabel as they rode past, and again Dipper was reminded that nobody else knew. They would have to know eventually, but for now, Dipper just wanted this day with his sister. Everything else could come after.

Mabel managed to beat him to the lake by a minute and a half (“Come on!” Bill had shouted at him. “You and Shooting Star are _both_ proving true to your names right now!”), and she was already by the water when Dipper finally arrived and hopped off his bike. He popped up the kickstand and ran over, stopping just before his feet went in the water.

“Hey, Shooting Star,” Bill said.

“Hi, Bill,” Mabel replied. “Don’t you think Dipper should be allowed to talk now?”

“I guess,” Bill said. “I am a serious businessman, after all. Have to keep my word.” With that, Dipper felt control of the mouth return to him.

“Hi, Mabel,” he said. She smiled at him and patted the ground beside her. They sat and Dipper gazed out at the water. After his last experience here, it was nice to see it so serene. “Any sign of it?”

Mabel shook her head. “I’m not sure how I’m going to get his attention,” she said. “It’s not like we really talked about it beforehand.”

“Maybe throw a rock in?”

“It’s a big lake, Dip,” Mabel said. “I don’t think he’s going to notice one little rock.”

“Oh, yeah,” Dipper said.

They sat together in silence for a few minutes. Tiny waves lapped at the shore, and Dipper was sure to keep his feet out of reach. He was not eager to repeat his experience in the mindscape. At the same time, Bill kept busy by drawing strange symbols in the ground. They were almost beautiful, in a weird way, and there did seem to be a system to them.

_You’re not doing magic, are you?_

Their finger still while still pressed to the mud. Then, it turned to a flat palm and brushed away all of its work.

_Bill?_

_No magic. Just a long dead alphabet. Forgot that I remembered it for a while._

_Oh._

Dipper frowned and tried to recreate a few of the symbols. He moved their finger in the same way and tried to match the same patterns as Bill, but he couldn’t seem to grasp the same flow.

“Hey,” Mabel said, making Dipper jump. He had forgotten where he was for a moment. “What’cha doing?”

Dipper stared at his weak attempts, one fingers still brown with mud.

“Nothing,” he said.

“I want to see,” Mabel said. Then, she was on top of him, practically climbing into his lap to get a look at his work.

“Wha– Mabel!” he cried. “There are– oof, easier ways to do this!”

Mabel didn’t make any sign that she had heard or cared. She stared down at the shapes on the ground for a moment before looking back up at him, half grinning with glee.

“You two are so weird,” she said. Then, just like that, her smile faded and she got back up. She stood over Dipper for a moment before she turned away and kicked off her shoes. They sailed high into the air before coming to rest on the beach several yards away.

“Mabel?” Dipper said. She pulled off her socks and let them fall onto the ground behind him. Finally, she turned around and waded into the water. Dipper knew that the water should have been freezing, but Mabel marched in with her head high.

“Hey!” she yelled once the water was up to her knees. She was still facing out, so her voice carried easily to the far corners of the lake. “If you don’t get out here, then I’m coming to you!” There was a moment of silence. Then, “Fine. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!” And Mabel disappeared beneath the water.

Dipper stared at the place where his sister had vanished. He wasn’t sure what had just happened, or whether he should have been more worried about her.

“Bill?” he said.

“Don’t look at me,” Bill said.

Dipper stood up quickly. “Maybe, uh, maybe we should go in after her?”

“I want to do the swimming part this time,” Bill said.

“Fine, sure, let’s just– Woah!”

With a great splash and spray of water, a giant tentacle shot up out of the water. The resulting wave crashed into Dipper, soaking his clothes, though not enough to go through his shoes. He stumbled backwards and Bill caught them while directing their gaze up to the tentacle. Although at first it was difficult for Dipper to see against the glare of the sun, his eyes adjusted quickly. Far up above them, he saw the tip of the tentacle wrapped around Mabel. At the same time, the sound of cheering reached his ears.

“He’s doing great!” Mabel said as the creature lowered her down to the ground. Her hair was running with water and her clothes were completely soaked. There was a huge smile on her face. “You’ve got to see him when he’s swimming down there, it’s so cool!”

“Sure,” Dipper said, a little laugh jumping out of him. “As soon as I trust Bill with holding our head underwater, I’ll get on that.”

“You were all up for swimming a second ago!” Bill cried.

Dipper laughed again, unable to even formulate a response. This was all too ridiculous.

Mabel stepped onto the ground and the tentacle retracted. It hung above them in the air for a moment, and far out on the water he could see a green eye poking up just above the surface of the water. He tried to point it out to Mabel, but it disappeared just as she turned around, bringing the tentacle under with it.

“Aw, you scared him away,” Mabel said, turning back to Dipper. “He doesn’t know you yet, so he doesn’t know whether or not he can trust you.”

“I’m sure he’d recognize me if he just gave me a good squeeze.”

“Probably,” Mabel laughed. She sank back to the ground and Dipper followed, doing his best to ignore the gross feeling of his wet shorts. She sighed. “I wish you could see him, though. He’s so happy down there, and he’s so graceful when he swims. It’s like he’s dancing, but he’s just doing his thing.”

“Beauty and grace aren’t really my jam, Shooting Star,” Bill said. “But if Pine Tree wants to look, I’ll really do my best not to drown us.”

“Thanks, Bill,” Dipper said. He looked at Mabel and poked his head. “If it seems like I’m not very excited about jumping straight in, then it’s just because of that little problem.”

Mabel looked like she couldn’t decide whether or not to repress her laughter, because it was definitely bubbling up regardless.

“You guys!” she cried instead, bumping into Dipper and accidentally pushing him over. “You’re the worst. I’m trying to say something right now, and you turn it into a joke about mortality!”

“Mortality _is_ a joke, Shooting Star,” Bill said, earning a bust of laughter from Dipper.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said, realizing that he was in a very prone position just lying on the ground. He tried to push himself back up, but Mabel was nearly lying on top of him, keeping him stuck in place. “I swear, I will make every effort to see the giant squid thing by the end of the day.”

Mabel seemed to take mercy on him and rolled off his back so that she fell out of his view. “You don’t have to rush it or anything. I mean, we could practice in the pool at first, and then maybe later this week why not come back?”

Dipper was a moment away from agreeing when he remembered everything. He stilled, and even Bill seemed to notice that there had been a serious shift in the conversation.

“Mabel…” he said, unsure what he intended to say.

“Really, though, why not?” she said. Dipper still couldn’t see her face, although it wouldn’t have been hard for him to turn over and look. “You and Bill could learn to swim together for real, without any monsters or portals or anything. Maybe you’ll even like it. And then we come back and visit him, and you can see how happy he is down there. He loves this place so much. I don’t think he can imagine himself anywhere else, now that he’s here.”

“Mabel, you know that I can’t– _Bill_ can’t…”

“Bill is a dream demon. He can do whatever he wants,” Mabel said. “And you can, too. You wanted to save the town, and you did. You wanted to come back, and you’re here now. You can do _whatever_ you want, if you just fight for it a little bit.”

Dipper sat up and turned to look at her. Mabel was lying on her back, staring up at the sky, although she briefly glanced up at him. There were tears in her eyes, but she seemed to be making a real effort to keep them in.

“Why can’t you just stay?” she asked.

Dipper shook his head.

“You said it yourself, Mabel. Bill is a _dream demon_ ,” Dipper said. “And right now, we’re pretty much giving him free reign in our universe. The longer we’re together, the more of of his mindscape powers he’s able to pull into our world. It’s not safe.”

“Why did you even bother coming back then?” Mabel cried, shooting up to a sitting position. “Why did you bring him over, if it’s so dangerous?”

Dipper’s face grew hot. “To _see you,_ maybe?” he shot back. “I just wanted a chance to say _goodbye_!”

“And who _knows_ what could have happened because of that!” Mabel shouted. Her face was bright red, and several of the tears had broken free. “Maybe Bill could have pulled the whole mindscape in with you, or killed me with your hands, or even burned down the whole town!”

“Yeah, guess I’m being an idiot again!” Dipper yelled. “Stupid Dipper, always trusting the dream demon! Should’ve just let my sister wonder what happened to me for the rest of her life!”

“You’re not listening to me, Dipper! Instead of doing any of that, Bill gave up his entire plan for your sake! He–”

“Yeah, that’s what he said, and I just assumed he was telling the truth!”

_I thinking Shooting Star is trying to make a point._

“Shut _up_ , Bill!” Dipper snarled.

“Wha–“ Mabel started.

“It’s–” Dipper stopped and forced himself to breathe. “Bill and I can talk in our thoughts,” he said. “It didn’t start until last night, when I started hearing his voice in my head. Our connection is _growing_ , Mabel. His powers could get stronger until…”

“Until what?” Mabel leaned forward, and Dipper shifted back. “You know, I’m shocked that you heard Bill’s voice and didn’t immediately call the whole thing off. Seems like that could have gone south pretty quickly.”

“Maybe, I guess,” Dipper said. “But there was took much other stuff going on. I wanted to see you, and I guess I figured that I could handle it if anything got out of control.”

“Uh-huh,” Mabel said. There was a calculating look in her eyes that was entirely un-Mabel, and it had Dipper set on alert. “And why would that change at all later on?”

Dipper stared at her. “You’re not actually suggesting that I just try to _handle it_ if Bill ever tries to destroy the world, are you?”

“Sounds like it, Pine Tree,” Bill said, in a tone almost similar to Dipper’s own.

Mabel shrugged. “Or that it just won’t be an issue.”

“Seriously?” Dipper asked. “Like, you really think that Bill wouldn’t try anything?”

“Is this that trust thing you were talking about?” Bill asked, startling Dipper. He had forgotten about that whole conversation, but apparently Mabel had remembered it also. She seemed to grow more serious after the mention of it. She nodded.

“Something like it,” she said. “You gave up everything that you worked for just to get my brother back to me. That’s worth something.” She tried to smile for them. “If you chose to stick around, I wouldn’t be worried about it.”

Dipper felt a stirring in her heart that he knew hadn’t come from his own emotions.

He gulped. He didn’t think he liked where this was going. There had been enough disappointments already, so he knew the danger if he let himself get hopeful about this. To actually consider this as an option…

“If we actually do what you’re suggesting,” he said, “then this is how it’s going to be pretty much forever. Any resource that could actually help us find a solution is going to be in the mindscape. There’s nothing I can find on Earth that unbind us.”

“I’m not too worried about that. I mean, if Bill couldn’t think of anything to get you out, how likely is it that the solution exists at all?”

“Not likely,” Bill said.

“But…” Dipper had to come up with every reason he could think of for why this was a bad idea. If they forgot even one, it could spell disaster later on. More important than things going right, Dipper just didn’t want them to go wrong. “Bill, wouldn’t you get bored? Spending all of that time in my body? And what would even happen at the end?”

“60 years of learning how to deal with humans is nothing on eternity, Pine Tree,” Bill said. “I was already planning on putting off m latest plans until later. This works fine for filling in the time. And as for the end… I’m sure we’ll see it coming ahead of time. If there’s one thing my powers have proved useful for so far, it’s preventing your sudden death.”

Looking back, Dipper was surprised at how weirdly true that statement was. Were they really doing this? Was this actually happening?

“But what about Warner?” he asked. “He’s still out there. Didn’t you want to deal with him?”

“Yeah, but that was before I spent all of my energy taking out two out of three of his cronies,” Bill said. Dipper felt his fingers dig into the dirt, and realized that it was probably partially his own fault that the plan hadn’t gone right. “I figured that we would just have to deal with that last one when we went back, but hiding out in your universe works just as well. Maybe by the time we get back, Warner will have turned his back. That’ll be a good introduction to demons for you.”

“This whole thing wasn’t good enough of an introduction?” Dipper asked.

Bill laughed. “Imagine that we have a book all about demons. An _actual_ book, not that cruddy thing you have sitting on your shelf, but a thick book with accurate information and sources and all of that stuff that means it’s legitimate. Right now, Pine Tree, you’re still in the acknowledgments.”

Mabel giggled, and Dipper couldn’t deny that the sound made him happy.

“So, we’re really going to do this. Bill and I are going to stay here.” It felt so strange to say the words out loud, almost wrong. Was this fair? Was it actually an option? The others certainly seemed convinced of it. “Are you both actually okay with this?”

“Playing as a human for a while could be fun,” Bill said. He brought up their hand to inspect where dirt had gotten under their fingernails. “Like I said, 60 is literally infinity less than infinity.”

“Of course I’m okay with it!” Mabel said. “But what about you, Dipper?”

For the first time that afternoon, she actually seemed a little bit nervous.

The feeling wasn’t unwarranted. Mabel was literally asking him to spend the rest of his life with a demon in his head, partially controlling his body and never leaving him alone. It was a lot to take in, a huge commitment to make for someone who hadn’t even entered high school yet. If this had been Dipper’s first dealing with the supernatural, he would have said no. He would have decided that he just wasn’t able to handle it all.

But somehow, Dipper wasn’t scared. He didn’t know what lay in store in the future. Certainly, he life was going to be very different from anything he had ever envisioned for himself, but he realized that it might not be the worst thing. He had already spent two summers going after creatures that only existed in most people’s dreams. If that was a pattern he was set to follow for the rest of his life, well, maybe it wouldn’t be too bad.

He had his sister, after all. And, however oddly it had come about, he also had Bill. His friend.

He smiled at her, and it felt wider and more genuine than he had ever known. Mabel gasped, and then her arms were wrapped around him, and they were laughing. Dipper felt his arms freeze for only a moment before coming up to return the hug, and he laughed.

The sound was clear and bright. Dipper wasn’t sure who it came from or what it was directed at, but it felt so _right_.

Gravity Falls was okay. Mabel was okay.

He himself was okay.

Two bodies stood up, and, together, the three continued to dance across the beach.

 

* * *

 ▲

* * *

  

The last day of summer. Dipper couldn’t believe that it had come, and now that they were getting ready for bed he wished that they could have added on a few more hours.

Their fourteenth birthday had been phenomenal. Technically, Grunkle Stan had planned it, but he had gotten a lot of help from strange notes that had just _appeared_ around the Mystery Shack. They were just helpful little things. One had a complete guest list of, and another bore a description of Mabel’s ideal cake, along with the address of a bakery. Stan had been wise enough to heed the advice of the strange notes, and it had worked out well: all of their friends had come, and everyone had had a good time.

Everybody was really good about ignoring it when Dipper started cackling halfway through. Bill hadn’t been able to get over the fact that they were congratulating him for being fourteen.

“When you’re only projected to live less than a century, I guess you just have to celebrate the little things,” he said afterwards, when they were cleaning up. Dipper had decided that it was best just to agree with it, especially since he couldn’t deny the hint of truth behind Bill’s words.

Now, he was up in his room, making sure that he was nearly packed for the morning bus. Aside from pajamas and his outfit for the next day, all of his clothes were packed. Toiletries were put away, as well as books and homework that he had finished at midnight the night before. Mabel had been right beside him, cramming and copying off of his own work. Dipper had let her, because he couldn’t really say that he was any better. Bill, bored of studying, had provided him with most of the answers.

There were a lot of things that they had agreed on in preparation for returning to normal life. Homework was not one of them. Part of the problem was that Bill kept changing his mind about it. Sometimes he thought it was better to get through it fast and do it all himself, but other times he thought that it was more fun to watch Dipper figure it out himself. Even his slightly erratic behavior would have been manageable were it not for the fact that his knowledge far surpassed all of humanity, living or dead.

Case in point: Dipper still had the three page, unfinished essay that Bill had started writing in the response to the question, “What is gravity?” He still wasn’t sure how he was going to explain it to his teacher, especially given that he didn’t understand half of the words himself.

Beyond that, though, they had done a lot to prepare. For one thing, Bill was only to speak to their parents if Dipper was literally unable to by himself, and even then it had to be as brief as possible. They also had a number of code words in place just in case they needed Mabel to intervene at all.

Dipper sat down on his bed, facing Mabel as she shoved the last of her sweaters into a bulging suitcase.

“You guys ready for tomorrow?” she asked. “Big big day!”

“Eh,” Dipper said.

“Can’t wait!” Bill cried.

Mabel smiled up at him. “Just remember: if Mom and Dad find out that Dipper got possessed by a triangle, they’ll literally get a priest to try and yank you out.”

Bill rolled their eyes. “Forgive me if I’m not very scared of an old man yelling and throwing water at me. I’m in here for good.”

“And that’s when they’d disown me,” Dipper said. “So really, let’s not let that happen, yeah?”

“Whatever suits you, Pine Tree,” Bill said with a shrug.

Mabel finally squeezed her bag shut and walked over to her own bed. Just before she climbed in, she glanced at their bedside table.

“Dipper, you taking the journal with you?” she asked, pointing at where it lay open.

“Huh? Oh, yeah,” he said, scooting over to get a better look at it just as Mabel pressed the fluttery pages down. A small gasp escaped her.

“Is that…”

“Warner,” Dipper said. He looked down at the page. The pencil drawing stared up at them. Dipper had done his best to capture his likeness, and Bill had been helpful describing the details. It looked pretty similar to what Dipper remembered, although somehow not nearly as mysterious now that it was being presented in the real world.

Mabel stared at the drawing for a moment longer. It was the first time that she was seeing him instead of hearing a description, and Dipper could only wonder what she thought of it.

“I’ve been trying to record all of the new stuff we saw this summer,” he said. “None of it was anything that the author could have seen in his time, so I figured that I should put together everything I know.”

“Oh, Bill, have you been helping?” Mabel asked.

“Haven’t really felt like it,” Bill said. “If Pine Tree gets something _really_ wrong, I’ll be sure to point it out. But it’s much more fun to see his own conclusions.”

Mabel smiled at them, then looked down at the picture once more.

“It’s really good,” she said. “It really looks a lot like a goat, except for all of the spooky bits. But didn’t you say that he had three pairs of eyes?”

“Huh?” Dipper peered closer, and realized that he really had forgotten the last set. The face was no less chilling without them, but he still felt silly for having left them out.

_Above the top pair, and smaller._

“Thanks, Bill,” Dipper said. He grabbed his pencil and scribbled on the last details. He looked at the finished result once more before showing it to Mabel.

“I’ve never met the guy, but I think he’d be flattered with such a fine portrait,” she said. “You should do me next!”

“Maybe when we get home,” he said. “And not in this journal.”

“Of course not,” Mabel said, walking away to flop onto her bed. “Unlike some people, I’m just fine looking at the supernatural from a distance. I don’t need to go become one.”

“Wasn’t my idea,” Dipper said, but it came out with a grin. Bill had been pressuring him to do a self-portrait in the journal, and lately he’d been thinking that it might be worthwhile. As far as he knew, he and Bill were in a completely unique situation, and that definitely seemed like a good thing to write down.

He started to write down a couple more observations about Warner when Stan’s voice boomed from downstairs.

“Kids! Bed!” he yelled, sending them scrambling. “I don’t want to have to call your parents and tell them that you’re going to be five hours late again!”

“Goodnight, Grunkle Stan!” Mabel called back.

“Goodnight, Grunkle Stan,” Dipper said.

“Night, Glasses!” Bill shouted through the door.

“Goodnight,” Stan repeated. The light downstairs went off, and a moment later the bedroom light did as well.

“Do you remember everything you’re going to tell Mom and Dad?” Mabel whispered through the darkness.

“He’s been rehearsing it to me for the last week and a half,” Bill said.

“Brown hair turning blond is a normal thing that runs in the family,” Dipper said, ignoring the way Bill poked their cheek while he spoke. “We’ll say that it happened to Grunkle Stan, and they won’t really be able to argue since neither of them have any pictures of him before his hair went gray.”

“And the eyes?” Mabel pressed.

“That is what we are calling pigment dispersion syndrome,” Dipper said. “It’s totally benign, it just means that the pigment in my iris got up and left one day.” He gulped. “Also, in every real case, it makes eyes darker. So we’re going to have to work really hard to make sure that they don’t do too much research into it. Stan’s been pretty good about getting fake doctor’s notes and writing fake articles about it, but maybe try not to draw too much attention to it, just in case?”

“Not much I can do about that, I’m afraid,” Mabel said. “That darn thing is just too _eye catching_.”

Bill laughed.

_Seriously, Bill?_

“It was funny,” he whined.

Dipper shook his head, the smile still on his face. He flipped onto his side so that he was facing Mabel. “Goodnight, guys,” he said, closing their eyes.

“Goodnight, Dipper. Goodnight, Bill,” Mabel said from across the room.

Dipper only had their eyes shut for a moment before his golden right eye flicked open again.

“Close it, Bill,” he said. “We’ve got to sleep.”

“Fine, fine,” Bill said, closing it once more. “Night Pine Tree, Shooting Star.”

The quiet room was nice and peaceful, and the bed was comfortable, so Dipper couldn’t understand why his heart was beating so hard. He attributed it to nerves over seeing their parents again, and did his best to focus on happy thoughts, like getting back to their air conditioned room in Piedmont.

Bill had never learned such coping mechanisms, so he tried to think of nothing at all, especially not the fact that he had seen the image of Warner flicker blue in the darkness.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAAAAAA, IT'S OVER.
> 
> Okay, got that out of my system. I just can't believe that it's really here. I've been thinking this day for months, but now it's real, and I'm just in shock.
> 
> First of all, _thank you_. You guys are awesome, and I'm so glad that I had awesome readers like you backing me up along the way. Your kudos and comments honestly meant the world to me, and some days gave me the push to keep writing when I almost considered giving up. I'm so happy that you guys have stuck around this long.
> 
> As for the future of this story, I have a few ideas in mind. There are a couple of follow-up oneshots that I want to write, and those'll probably happen within the next couple months. I'm also considering a sequel. Right now, I have a basic idea for it, although no definite plot as of yet. _If_ that becomes a thing, it will probably come out some time in the next year.
> 
> So, this is only goodbye for now. I am so glad that I got to share this with you guys. This is actually an idea that I've had since I was a little kid, when I would play games pretending that I was two people stuck in one body. The thought of putting Dipper and Bill in such a situation came to me completely randomly one day, and working out from there I created the rest of the story.
> 
> Also, random fun fact: Warner's name was originally a placeholder. I eventually came up with the name Jake for him, but by that point I had gotten too used to calling him Warner, so I just stuck with it.
> 
> One last thing before I hit publish: can you guys do me a favor and tell me what you thought of the chapter lengths? I'm considering doing them about half as long for the sequel, although the story itself will probably be about the same length. If you could just leave a quick note saying if they were too long or not, I'd really appreciate it!
> 
> Okay, this is it. Thank you guys so much! Hope to see you around soon!


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